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B.  H.  BLACKWELL  LTD. 

BOOKSELLERS 
48  to  51  BKOAD  STREET 
OXFORD 


t/64  C 


tL.     &LLtt,~H+*+"l, 


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\  I 


SIX  HUNDRED  COPIES  OF  THIS 
BOOK  HAVE  BEEN  PRINTED — FOR 
PRIVATE  DISTRIBUTION  ONLY. 


THIS  COPY  IS  NUMBER 


PRINTED    BY 

THE    SCRIBNER   PRESS 

NEW   YORK 


THE  BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 

OF 

JOSEPH  HODGES  CHOATE 


THE 

BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 

OF 

JOSEPH  HODGES  CHOATE 


NEW  YORK 

PRIVATELY   PRINTED 

1917 


Copyright,  1917,  by 
CAROLINE  STERLING  CHOATE 


PREFATORY  NOTE 

For  many  years  Mr.  Choate's  family  and  friends 
had  begged  him  to  write  his  reminiscences.  He  in- 
variably refused  to  entertain  the  idea  on  the  ground 
that,  in  his  opinion,  such  sketches  could  be  of  no  value 
to  any  one.  To  the  many  requests  of  publishers, 
editors,  and  biographers,  he  likewise — with  a  char- 
acteristic lack  of  vanity — turned  a  deaf  ear. 

In  the  spring  of  1914,  however — when  he  was  in 
his  eighty-third  year — the  convalescence  and  inac- 
tion consequent  upon  the  first  severe  illness  of  his  life, 
prompted  him  to  begin  the  dictation  of  these  papers. 
They  were  casually  and  intermittently  composed, 
with  no  idea  of  publication  in  mind,  and  only  in- 
tended for  the  eyes  of  his  immediate  family.  On 
occasions  weeks  and  even  months  passed  by  without 
his  giving  them  a  thought. 

The  papers  are  here  printed  literally,  just  as  he  dic- 
tated them  to  his  secretary.  Mr.  Choate  made  no  use 
of  notes  in  preparing  them;  he  consulted  no  books, 
and  he  never  even  corrected  the  manuscript.  Had  he 
done  so,  he  would  undoubtedly  have  made  many  ver- 
bal alterations — and  perhaps  excisions — in  the  text. 
He  began  the  sketches  with  slight  interest,  but,  as 

[v] 


[vi] 

they  developed,  he  became  more  absorbed  in  the  task 
and  looked  forward  with  a  good  deal  of  pleasure  to 
going  on  with  it. 

After  the  celebrations  incident  to  his  eighty-fifth 
birthday,  he  went  back  to  the  work  with  renewed 
zest  and  had  started  on  the  chapter  entitled  "  Mar- 
riage" when  there  came  the  break  in  our  diplomatic 
relations  with  Germany.  From  that  moment — Feb- 
ruary 3,  1917 — nothing  could  induce  him  to  con- 
tinue his  task.  His  mind  seemed  to  harbor  but  one 
thought,  the  thought  of  the  Great  Cause  and  of  the 
part  which  he  longed  to  have  his  country  play  in  it. 

CAROLINE  STERLING  CHOATE. 

NAUMKEAG,  STOCKBRIDGE,  MASS., 
October  16,  1917. 


CONTENTS 


PACE 


PREFATORY  NOTE v 

I.    ANCIENT  HISTORY 3 

II.     HOG  ISLAND 20 

III.  CHILDHOOD 33 

IV.  SALEM 44 

V.    HARVARD  COLLEGE 66 

VI.  TRAINING  FOR  THE  BAR      ........  91 

VII.     EARLY  DAYS  IN  NEW  YORK 106 

VIII.    AT  THE  NEW  YORK  BAR 128 

IX.     MARRIAGE 150 


Vll 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

JOSEPH  HODGES  CHOATE  AT  THE  AGE  OF  SEVENTEEN 

Frontispiece 

The  original  daguerreotype  is  in  the  possession  of  Mrs. 
Choate,  and  is  the  earliest  existing  picture  of  Mr.  Choate. 


FACING  PACE 


THE  OLD  WITCH  HOUSE,  SALEM,  IN  1839      ....       10 

As  it  looked  when  it  fascinated  Mr.  Choate  as  a  boy. 
This  house  belonged  to  Lieutenant  Nathaniell  Ingersalls  in 
1692;  and  it  was  here  that  the  men  and  women  under  the 
terrible  suspicion  of  witchcraft  were  examined. 

THE  CHOATE  BRIDGE — IPSWICH,  MASSACHUSETTS     .     .       10 

Built  in  1764  by  Colonel  John  Choate,  grandson  of  the  first 
Choate  settler,  and  brother  of  J.  H.  C.'s  ancestor.  This  was  the 
first  bridge  built  on  arches  in  that  part  of  the  world,  and  caused 
such  wonder  to  the  inhabitants  that  they  waited  all  day  when 
the  supports  were  removed,  expecting  to  see  it  collapse. 

HOG  ISLAND 20 

Named  from  the  shape  of  the  land.  The  land  was  acquired 
by  John  Choate  the  original  emigrant.  In  1690  his  son, 
Thomas,  married  and  lived  there  for  thirty-five  years. 

CHOATE  HOMESTEAD  ON  HOG  ISLAND 20 

Built  in  1725  by  Francis  Choate,  great-great-grandfather 
of  J.  H.  C.  Here,  in  1799,  Rufus  Choate  was  born.  The  house 
and  farm  are  still  in  the  possession  of  his  branch  of  the  family. 

STEPHEN  CHOATE — 1727-1815 26 

Great-grandfather  of  J.  H.  C.  He  held  various  public  offices, 
was  twice  married,  had  thirteen  children,  and  lived  to  be 
eighty-eight  years  old. 

DOCTOR  GEORGE  CHOATE 34 

Born  at  Ipswich,  1796;  died  at  Cambridge,  1880,  in  the 
eighty-fourth  year  of  his  age — father  of  J.  H.  C.  This  silhou- 
ette was  evidently  made  as  he  approached  middle  age. 


FACING  PAGE 

HOUSE  OF  DOCTOR  GEORGE  CHOATE  ON  ESSEX  STREET, 

SALEM 42 

This  house  was  given  to  Mrs.  George  Choate  by  her  father, 
Gamaliel  Hodges,  on  the  occasion  of  her  marriage  to  Doctor 
Choate,  and  here  all  her  six  children  were  born.  It  was  also 
in  this  house  that  Count  Rumford  served  as  apprentice  to  Mr. 
Appleton  before  the  Revolutionary  War. 

HODGES  HOUSE  ON  ESSEX  STREET,  SALEM     ....       42 

A  good  specimen  of  the  style  of  the  period.  Owned  by  John 
Hodges,  uncle  of  J.  H.  C. 

GAMALIEL  HODGES — 1766-1850 54 

Grandfather  of  J.  H.  C.  From  a  pastel  portrait  painted 
in  Antwerp,  when  "  Captain  "  Hodges,  as  a  young  sea  captain, 
roamed  the  sea.  He  lived  to  be  over  eighty-four  years  old,  and 
only  survived  his  wife  two  months.  Their  married  life  lacked 
but  six  days  of  lasting  sixty-two  years. 

DOCTOR  GEORGE  CHOATE — 1796-1880 66 

Father  of  J.  H.  C.  This  portrait  was  made  when  he  was 
about  sixty-six  years  old. 

MRS.  GEORGE  CHOATE 78 

Born  at  Salem,  1805;  died  at  Stockbridge,  1887.  Mother 
of  J.  H.  C.  Margaret  Manning  Hodges,  daughter  of  Gamaliel 
and  Sarah  Williams  Hodges,  married  Doctor  Choate  in  1825. 
Their  married  life  lasted  fifty-six  years  and  a  half,  and  they 
had  four  sons  and  two  daughters.  J.  H.  C.  was  the  fifth  child. 

JOSEPH  HODGES  CHOATE  AT  THE  AGE  OF  TWENTY  .     .       90 

This  picture  was  taken  with  his  class  at  graduation  in  1852. 
The  original  daguerreotype  is  in  the  Harvard  Library  at  Cam- 
bridge. 

RUFUS  CHOATE 98 

Born  at  Hog  Island  1799;  died  at  Halifax  1859.  First  cousin 
of  Doctor  George  Choate.  This  was  J.  H.  C.'s  favorite  por- 
trait of  his  distinguished  kinsman,  and  always  hung  in  his  own 
room  over  his  bed.  He  had  a  great  admiration  and  affection 
for  Rufus  Choate,  and  always  felt  deeply  grateful  to  him  for 
his  early  kindnesses. 


[xi] 


FACING  PAGE 

WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS 108 

The  famous  New  York  lawyer,  Attorney-General,  Secretary 
of  State,  and  United  States  Senator.  He  invited  J.  H.  C.  to 
become  junior  partner  in  the  firm  of  Evarts  and  Southmayd 
in  1859,  and  the  relationship  then  begun  was  only  dissolved 
by  Mr.  Evarts's  death.  This  portait,  painted  by  William  M. 
Hunt  in  the  seventies,  shows  Mr.  Evarts  in  the  prime  of  life. 

GAMALIEL  HODGES — 1766-1850 120 

This  silhouette  of  Mr.  Choate's  grandfather  was  made  when 
he  was  about  seventy  years  of  age.  He  was  a  very  big  man, 
over  six  feet  and  a  half  tall,  and  weighed  over  three  hundred 
pounds;  although  when  he  was  born  he  is  said  to  have  been 
so  small  that  he  was  put  in  a  silver  tankard  and  the  top  shut 
down! 

JOSEPH  HODGES  CHOATE \ 

CAROLINE  STERLING  CHOATE J 

These  photographs  were  taken  in  1863 — two  years  after  their 
marriage,  October  16,  1861.  Their  married  life  lasted  over 
fifty-five  years. 

ANNOUNCEMENT  OF  THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  FIRM  OF 

CHOATE  AND  BARNES,  IN  1858 144 

This  notice  was  found  among  Mr.  Choate's  papers,  and 
must  have  been  issued  just  a  few  months  before  he  joined  the 
firm  of  Evarts  and  Southmayd. 

FACSIMILE  OF  MANUSCRIPT  OF  VERSES 152 

Written  to  Mrs.  John  Jay  by  Mr.  Choate  on  the  day  of  his 
engagement — July  4,  1861.  The  verses — printed,  in  toto,  on 
pages  151  and  152 — are  interesting  as  showing  his  character- 
istic handwriting,  which  never  faltered  until  the  day  of  his 
death. 


THE  BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH 

OF 

JOSEPH  HODGES  CHOATE 


ANCIENT  HISTORY 

A  long  confinement  to  my  room  and  bed,  for  the 
first  time  in  more  than  eighty  years,  threw  me  in 
upon  myself  for  many  weary  days  and  nights,  and 
left  me  nothing  to  study  but  the  pictures  on  the  walls 
of  my  room;  but  these  served  as  stepping-stones,  as  it 
were,  in  the  progress  of  a  long  and  happy  life,  and  re- 
minded me  of  the  many  requests  of  my  children  and 
others  that  I  would  put  upon  paper  some  of  its  remi- 
niscences. 

I  believe  it  was  Doctor  Holmes  who  said  that  a 
child's  education  should  begin  a  hundred  years  be- 
fore he  was  born,  and  I  think  mine  began  at  about 
the  period  he  indicates. 

To  begin  with,  there  is  the  portrait  of  my  sturdy 
maternal  grandfather,  Gamaliel  Hodges — Captain 
Mill  Hodges,  as  he  was  always  called  in  Salem,  where 
he  was  born  and  lived,  and  where  he  died  in  1850. 
It  is  only  a  silhouette,  but  represents  a  sturdy  and 
fine  old  figure  at  seventy,  full  of  life  and  health,  and 
good  for  many  years  to  come. 

It  was  he  who  brought  into  our  line  the  size  and 
strength  and  length  of  days  that  has  stood  us  so  well 
in  hand  for  three  generations  at  least.  It  was  his 
twenty-five  years  before  the  mast  and  on  the  quarter- 

[3] 


[4] 

deck,  full  of  fresh  air  and  salt  water,  that  gave  us  our 
good  constitutions;  and  if  I  was  able  to  maintain  a 
very  strenuous  life  at  the  bar  for  forty  years  and  at 
the  same  time  to  give  to  public  service  all  the  atten- 
tion that  a  private  citizen  should,  I  owe  it  more  to 
him  than  to  anybody  else. 

If  he  had  had  a  full  education  he  would  undoubt- 
edly have  been  a  very  prominent  character  in  Massa- 
chusetts, but  he  never  went  beyond  the  common 
schools  at  Salem,  which  at  that  date  must  have  been 
of  an  extremely  primitive  character.  He  told  me 
that  in  1776,  at  the  age  of  ten,  he  heard  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence  read  on  Salem  Common,  and 
it  made  a  life-long  impression  upon  him;  but  what 
showed  the  limited  quantity  of  his  education  was 
that  he  never  went  beyond  the  three  R's — Reading, 
Writing,  and  Arithmetic — at  the  school  that  he  at- 
tended, and  that  every  day,  when  the  hour  came  for 
dismissing  school,  the  boys  all  rose  and  recited  to- 
gether, "Honorificabilitudinitatibus,"  and  with  the 
"BUS"  all  started  for  the  door  with  a  shout. 

That  was  the  sum  of  all  his  schooling;  for,  like  all 
Salem  boys  of  well-to-do  families  in  those  days,  he 
took  to  the  sea  at  fifteen,  which  served  him  as  college 
and  university  through  all  the  grades,  as  cabin-boy, 
seaman,  supercargo,  second  mate,  first  mate,  and 
captain,  and  only  retired  when  he  had  become  not 
only  the  master  but  owner  of  his  ship.  The  largest 
ships  of  that  day  were  of  six  or  seven  hundred  tons, 
which  could  easily  get  into  Salem  Harbor,  and  per- 


[5] 

mitted  it  to  be  the  chief  seaport  of  Massachusetts. 
And  when  larger  vessels  came  in,  that  could  not  get 
in  there,  commerce  moved  to  Boston  and  New  York, 
with  their  commodious  harbors. 

I  never  knew  where  this  unpronounceable  word 
that  gave  the  sign  for  the  dismissal  of  this  school  came 
from  until  some  years  afterwards,  when  I  found  it 
in  the  mouth  of  Holofernes,  the  schoolmaster  in 
"Love's  Labor's  Lost,"  who  seemed  to  have  made  a 
similar  use  of  it.  Now  my  grandfather,  I  am  sure, 
had  never  read  Shakespeare,  and  I  doubt  whether  his 
teacher  had.  It  must  have  been  a  word — if  we  can 
call  it  a  word — that  came  down  through  tradition  in 
the  schools,  handed  from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  cross- 
ing the  Atlantic  with  the  first  settlers.  And  I  have 
no  doubt  that  for  centuries  before  that  it  had  been 
used  in  a  similar  way  in  the  Latin  schools  of  early  cen- 
turies, for  I  find  that  it  occurs  in  manuscripts  at  least 
as  early  as  the  twelfth  century,  in  the  "Catholicon" 
of  Johannes  of  Janua,  1286,  and  in  Dante's  "De  vul- 
gari  eloquio,"  and  in  late  middle  Latin  dictionaries. 
The  idea  seems  to  have  been  that  any  boy  who  could 
spell  that  could  spell  any  word  in  any  language. 

At  any  rate,  Gamaliel  Hodges'  stalwart  form  has 
served  us  well  ever  since.  He  is  said  to  have  been  the 
tallest  man  in  Salem,  and  at  his  best,  or  worst, 
weighed  no  less  than  three  hundred  and  fifty  pounds. 
And  his  brothers  were  of  like  stature,  for  the  story  is 
told  that  when  all  three — he  and  Benjamin  and 
George — were  standing  together  on  Derby  Wharf,  the 


[6] 

master  of  a  foreign  vessel  coming  up  the  dock,  ex- 
claimed: "Is  this  a  land  of  giants?"  He  had  no 
nerves  whatever,  and  is  believed  to  have  gone  through 
his  long  life  of  eighty-five  years  without  any  illness 
until  that  which  finally  carried  him  off. 

But  the  Choates  of  our  line  were  generally  a  ner- 
vous race,  full  of  vitality  and  mental  action,  without 
the  Hodges  stamina,  dying  or  failing  early,  and  per- 
haps lingering  into  old  age  in  a  somewhat  weakened 
condition.  It  was  this  blend  of  two  such  different 
stocks  by  the  union  of  my  father  and  mother  that 
proved  such  a  happy  one  for  their  posterity. 

There  is  another  portrait  of  Gamaliel  Hodges  in  my 
library,  representing  him  as  a  spruce  young  American 
shipmaster,  about  twenty-five  years  old,  in  what  ap- 
pears to  have  been  the  sort  of  uniform  for  such  com- 
manders at  that  period.  It  was  painted  in  Antwerp 
when  he  was  there  in  command  of  a  ship,  and  his 
cocked  hat,  red  waistcoat,  ruffled  shirt,  with  a  spy- 
glass under  his  arm,  set  him  off  to  advantage.  Strange 
to  say,  it  bears  a  striking  resemblance  to  one  of  his 
great-grandsons,  showing  how  features  are  some- 
times transmitted  to  distant  posterity  to  one  out  of 
many  descendants. 

There  is  a  story  worth  noting  about  this  picture. 
My  lifelong  friend,  Captain  John  S.  Barnes,  who  was 
a  naval  commander  in  the  Civil  War,  came  into  my 
library  one  day,  and  as  his  eyes  fastened  upon  this 
picture  he  exclaimed,  with  uplifted  eyes  and  hands: 
"Where  did  you  get  that  picture?" 


[7] 

Well,  I  told  him  I  had  seen  it  at  least  seventy  years 
ago  in  my  grandfather's  house  in  Salem,  and  it  came 
direct  to  me  from  there  when  that  house  was  broken 
up.  "Why,"  he  said,  "that  cannot  be.  That  is  a 
portrait  of  John  Paul  Jones/' 

It  seems  that  Captain  Barnes  had  purchased  in 
Paris  a  portrait  of  John  Paul  Jones,  at  a  high  cost, 
and  which  he  had  treasured  very  carefully  ever  since 
out  of  admiration  for  that  hero,  and  he  said  I  must  be 
mistaken  about  the  subject  of  the  portrait.  Nothing 
would  satisfy  him,  however,  but  to  bring  his  own  pic- 
ture and  set  it  side  by  side  with  mine.  And  then  it 
appeared  plainly  enough  that  the  only  resemblance 
between  the  two  was  in  the  cocked  hat,  the  red  waist- 
coat, the  ruffled  shirt,  the  spy-glass  under  the  arm, 
and  a  similar  air  of  the  sea  in  both  pictures — a  ship 
and  the  salt  water  being  in  the  background. 

I  have  heard  that  in  those  days  it  was  the  fashion 
with  young  American  shipmasters,  when  in  foreign 
ports,  to  get  their  portraits  painted  to  bring  home  to 
their  families,  and  very  likely  these  two  fell  into  the 
hands  of  the  same  artist.  So  he  kept  his  portrait,  and 
I  mine,  both  perfectly  satisfied  with  our  treasures. 

My  grandmother,  Sarah  Williams,  who  married 
Gamaliel  Hodges  in  1788,  was  a  model  of  the  do- 
mestic virtues.  She  had  eight  children,  five  sons  and 
three  daughters,  of  whom  my  mother,  Margaret 
Manning  Hodges,  born  in  1805,  was  the  youngest. 

She  was  of  tiny  stature,  much  less  than  half  the 
size  of  her  husband,  which  saved  her  children  and 


[8] 

grandchildren  from  becoming  giants  by  reducing  them 
to  reasonable  stature.  Always  serene,  placid,  and  in- 
dustrious, she  lived  and  thought  in  the  good  old  style, 
as  if  the  object  of  her  life  was  accomplished  by  taking 
good  care  of  her  husband  and  children,  and  she  satis- 
fied the  old  adage  that  the  best  women  in  the  world 
are  those  of  whom  the  world  hears  least. 

She  lived  to  a  good  old  age,  being  one  year  younger 
than  her  husband  and  dying  three  months  before 
him,  at  the  age  of  eighty-three.  But  before  the  end 
she  got  tired  of  life,  and  for  many  years  I  remember 
her  sitting  in  the  chimney-corner  and  occasionally 
exclaiming:  "The  Lord  has  forgotten  me.  The  Lord 
has  forgotten  me."  Her  husband,  with  whom  she  had 
lived  in  happy  union  for  sixty-two  years,  could  not 
bear  to  live  without  her,  and  followed  her  to  the  grave 
in  less  than  three  months. 

It  is  through  her  that  we  trace  our  direct  descent 
from  the  most  distinguished  of  all  our  ancestors  on 
either  side,  Philip  English,  the  first  great  merchant  of 
Salem  and  presumably  of  New  England.  He  intro- 
duced into  our  lineage  the  only  strain  of  foreign  blood 
that  I  can  find  on  either  side. 

He  was  born  in  the  Island  of  Jersey  and  his  real 
name  was  Phillippe  L'Anglais.  He  was  baptized  June 
3Oth,  1651,  in  Trinity  Parish,  Isle  of  Jersey,  where,  on 
a  visit  to  that  island  in  1902,  I  verified  the  record  of 
his  birth.  He  is  said  to  have  been  of  Huguenot 
blood,  and  came  to  Salem  about  1670,  where  he  soon 
after  married  Mary  Hollingworth,  daughter  of  Wil- 


[9] 

liam  Hollingworth  by  his  wife,  who  is  described  as 
"the  accomplished  and  beautiful  Eleanor  Story." 

As  I  have  traced  my  grandmother's  descent  from 
him,  it  was  thus: 

Philip  English's  daughter  Mary  married  Captain 
William  Brown  before  1730.  Their  son,  William 
Brown,  married  Abigail  Archer,  widow  of  John  El- 
kins  of  Salem.  Their  daughter,  Abigail,  married  Cap- 
tain William  Williams,  an  English  master  mariner, 
and  their  daughter,  Sarah  Williams,  born  in  March, 
1767,  was  my  grandmother. 

Strangely  enough,  two  generations  before,  another 
Gamaliel  Hodges,  my  grandfather's  grandfather,  had 
married  another  Sarah  Williams,  through  whom  we 
were  connected  with  many  interesting  Salem  fam- 
ilies. 

Philip  English,  after  his  settlement  in  Salem  and 
marriage  with  Miss  Hollingworth,  proved  to  be  its 
most  enterprising  and  successful  citizen.  He  built 
and  owned  twenty-seven  vessels  and  carried  on  a  great 
commercial  trade,  acquired  large  tracts  of  land,  some 
of  them  through  his  wife,  and  built  at  the  foot  of 
Essex  Street,  overlooking  the  harbor  across  to  the 
Beverly  shore  and  the  Marblehead  shore,  a  fine  old 
gabled  house  of  large  dimensions  for  that  day,  be- 
sides fourteen  other  valuable  houses,  and  seems  to 
have  been  universally  respected  and  honored. 

But  "the  whirligig  of  time,"  as  Shakespeare  says, 
"brings  in  its  revenges,"  and  when  the  strange  witch- 
craft delusion  broke  out  in  1692  his  eminence  and 


[10] 

great  success  brought  upon  him  and  his  wife,  prob- 
ably because  of  envy  at  their  success  and  high  char- 
acter— they  were  considered  as  too  aristocratic — the 
charge  of  being  guilty  of  witchcraft. 

They  were  both  arrested  and  lodged  in  Boston  jail, 
from  which  they  managed  to  escape  and  took  refuge 
in  New  York  City,  which  has  always  been  the  asylum 
of  the  oppressed,  where  they  remained  until  the  de- 
lusion had  subsided.  Otherwise  their  names  would 
certainly  have  been  included  with  the  other  twenty 
victims  of  that  terrible  delusion. 

After  their  return  he  was  for  many  years  an  appli- 
cant to  the  General  Court  of  Massachusetts  for  relief 
and  compensation  for  the  injuries  that  he  had  sus- 
tained by  reason  of  the  wicked  charge. 

But  so  rapidly  did  the  delusion  die  out  when  the 
awful  bubble  had  once  burst,  that  on  their  return,  in 
the  following  year,  they  are  said  to  have  been  wel- 
comed home  with  bonfires  and  other  marks  of  re- 
joicing, and  he  lived  for  thirty  or  forty  years  longer. 

The  warrant  for  the  arrest  of  English  is  dated  at 
Salem,  April  3oth,  1692.  It  is  directed  to  the  mar- 
shal of  the  County  of  Essex  and  requires  him  "in 
their  Majesties'  names  to  apprehend  and  bring  before 
us  Phillip  English  of  Salem,  merchant,  at  the  house  of 
Lt.  Nathaniell  Ingersalls  in  Salem  Village  [that  is  the 
"Witch  House"  that  is  still  standing]  in  order  to 
theire  Examination  Relateing  to  high  Suspition  of 
Sundry  acts  of  witchcraft  donne  or  Committed  by 
them  upon  ye  Bodys  of  Mary  Walcot  Marcy  Lewis 


THE  OLD  WITCH  HOUSE,  SALEM,  IN   1839. 

As  it  looked  when  it  fascinated  Mr.  Choate  in  boyhood.  This  house  belonged  to  Lieu- 
tenant Nathaniel!  Ingersalls  in  1692;  and  it  was  here  that  the  men  and  women 
under  the  terrible  suspicion  of  witchcraft  were  examined. 


THE  CHOATE  BRIDGE— IPSWICH,  MASSACHUSETTS. 

Built  in  1764  by  Colonel  John  Choate,  grandson  of  the  first  Choate  settler, 
and  brother  of  J.  H.  C.'s  ancestor.  This  was  the  first  bridge  built  on  arches  in 
that  part  of  the  world,  and  caused  such  wonder  to  the  inhabitants  that  they 
waited  all  day  when  the  supports  were  removed,  expecting  to  see  it  collapse. 


jail, 

etuge 

e  de~ 

ould 

•i  the  c-  snty 

ensation  f< 

otet   MI  .1/3JA3  .38UOH  H3TIW  OJO  3HT 


.  ji  «A 

ii-jmow  ban  nsra  srfl  JfiffJ  sisrf  sisw  :i  Lnfi   ;SQC)I  ni  'lUrwgnl  |l»iasrfl*M  Jnsnal 

^ninisi^  9i9W  rtjnwbirw  );•  "'MHB,   tfl 


n 
re^ 

. 


him  *'ia 


STAOHO  SHT 

,i3bl3»   3l£od3  Jsift  ad;   k>   noafansig  .slsorfO   nrfol.   baoloO   \d   ^b^l    ni   jli 
ni  eadois  no  liiod  sgbhci  Jaift  arfj  e£^  sidT    .loleaonB  e'.D  .H  ,\_  }o  isrfjoid  bna 
•(sH)  Ifidl  einwidsdni  sdj  oJ  isbnow  fout  bazuc:  Lnr  ,bhow  sdJ  lo  neq  Jedl 
.ScqElIoD  li  sag  oj  gniJaaqxs  .bavomai  snsw  eJioqqoe  aril  nsdw  \«:b  Us  bsliew 


[II] 

Abigail  Williams  Ann  Putnam  and  Elizabeth  Hub- 
bert  and  Susannah  Sheldon :  viz :  upon  some  or  all  of 
them  belonging  to  Salem  village  or  farmes  whereby 
great  hurt  and  dammage  hath  benne  donne  to  ye 
Bodys  of  said  persons  according  to  complaint  of  Capt 
Jonathan  Walcot  and  Serjent  Thomas  Putnam  in  be- 
half of  their  Majesties  for  themselves  and  also  for 
severall  of  theire  neighbours." 

On  the  2d  of  May,  George  Herrick,  marshal 
of  Essex,  reports  Philip  English  cannot  be  found, 
whereupon  a  new  warrant  was  issued  to  the  marshal- 
general  or  his  lawful  deputy,  and  restating  that  he 
cannot  be  found,  the  marshal  is  authorized  to  appre- 
hend him  and  convey  him  into  Salem  and  deliver  him 
into  the  custody  of  the  Essex  marshal.  And  the 
marshal-general's  deputy  reports  that  "In  obedience 
to  the  within  written  warrant  the  within  remanded 
Phillip  English  was  arrested  and  committed  by  the 
Marshall  General  to  the  Marshall  of  Essex,  on  the 
3Oth  of  May  instant."  But  nevertheless  he  and  his 
wife  did  escape. 

And  this  is  some  of  the  evidence  which  is  worth  re- 
lating as  showing  the  horrible  character  of  that  de- 
lusion: 

"The  complaint  of  Susanna  Sheldon  against  Phillip 
English,  the  said  Susanna  Sheldon  bieng  at  meeting 
on  the  Sabboth  day  being  the  24  of  Aprill  shee  being 
aflicted  in  a  very  sad  manner  she  saw  phillip  English 
step  ouer  his  pew  and  pinched  her  and  a  womane 
which  came  from  boston  wich  saith  her  name  is  good 


[12] 

ne  when  shee  were  coming  home  against  William 
Shaws  house  their  mether  Phillip  English  and  a  black 
man  with  a  hy  crowned  hatt  on  his  head  and  a  book 
in  his  hand  houlding  the  book  to  her  and  Phillip  eng- 
lish  told  her  that  Black  man  were  her  God  and  if 
shee  would  tuch  that  boock  he  would  not  pinch  her 
no  more  nor  no  body  els  should. 

"on  the  next  day  phillip  English  came  again  and 
pinched  her  and  told  her  that  if  shee  would  not 
toutch  the  book  hee  would  kill  her. 

"On  the  second  day  at  night  apeared  to  her  two 
women  and  a  man  and  brought  their  books  and  bid 
her  touct  them  shee  told  them  shee  would  not  shee 
did  not  know  wher  they  liued  on  of  them  told  her 
they  lived  at  the  village  and  heald  the  book  to  her 
again  and  bid  her  touch  it.  shee  told  her  shee  did 
not  know  their  names  on  of  them  told  her  shee  was 
old  Goodman  buck  lyes  wife  and  the  other  woman 
was  her  daughter  Mary  and  bid  her  touch  the  book, 
shee  told  no  shee  had  not  told  her  how  long  shee  had 
beene  a  witch,  then  shee  told  her  shee  had  beene  a 
witch  ten  years  and  then  shee  opened  her  brest  and 
the  black  man  gau  her  two  little  things  like  yong 
cats  and  she  pit  them  to  her  brest  and  suckled  them 
they  had  no  hair  on  them  and  had  ears  like  a  man.'* 

The  whole  New  England  community  appears  to 
have  gone  mad  and  to  have  committed  at  the  in- 
stigation of  a  handful  of  malicious  and  foolish  girls  a 
terrible  massacre  of  twenty  of  their  fellow  citizens, 
among  them  some  of  the  most  cultivated,  pious,  and 


[13] 

innocent  people  in  the  world.  Giles  Corey,  a  man 
over  eighty  years  old,  was  pressed  to  death  by  order 
of  the  court  for  refusing  to  plead  to  the  indictment 
against  him.  And  all  this  was  done  at  the  instiga- 
tion of  the  clergy  of  New  England,  headed  by  Cotton 
Mather,  obsessed  with  the  conviction  that  the  Devil 
was  among  them  laboring  in  person  to  corrupt  and 
destroy  the  State. 

Certainly,  my  ancestor  was  extremely  fortunate  to 
escape  with  his  life.  I  read  that,  not  finding  his  per- 
son, they  seized  upon  and  confiscated  1,500  pounds' 
worth  of  his  goods,  and  after  many  years  he  recovered 
judgment  against  the  marshal  for  60  pounds  and 
was  awarded  200  pounds  by  the  commonwealth  for 
his  indemnity,  a  very  sorry  satisfaction  for  all  his 
suffering. 

Choate  seems  to  have  been  a  very  old  English  name 
among  the  better  sort  of  English  yeomen.  I  had  the 
pleasure  of  meeting  Lord  Acton,  a  great  historical 
authority,  soon  after  my  arrival  in  England  for  a  long 
residence,  and  he  said  to  me: 

"Why,  I  have  seen  your  name  spelled  exactly  as 
it  is  now,  in  English  annals  as  early  as  the  fourteenth 
century." 

Foolishly  enough,  I  did  not  think  to  ask  him  for  a 
reference  to  the  book  where  this  could  be  found,  and 
very  soon  afterwards  he  died,  and  the  knowledge  of 
that  died  with  him. 

The  name,  however,  did  to  a  slight  extent  emerge 


[Hi 

from  obscurity  in  England  early  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  when  Thomas  Choate,  son  of  Thomas  of 
Essex  entered  Christ  College  at  Cambridge  Univer- 
sity in  the  same  year  with  John  Milton,  1624.  The 
records  also  show  that  he  remained  there  for  four 
years  and  took  his  degree  with  Milton  in  1629,  and 
being  in  the  class  for  four  years,  they  must  often  have 
met,  and,  at  least,  have  become  familiar  acquain- 
tances. 

In  the  Biographical  Register  of  Christ's  College, 
issued  in  1913,  this  entry  appears: 

"Choate,    Thomas:   son   of  Thomas.      Of   Essex 
School:  Wethersfield,  under  Mr.  Cosen. 
Admitted  pensioner  under  Mr.  Cell — 
November  1624  B.A.  1629. 

Probably  brother  of  John  Chote  or 
Choate,  who  went  to  America  and  be- 
came ancestor  of  Joseph  Hodges  Choate, 
United  States  Ambassador  to  England, 
1899-1905." 

Pensioners  at  that  date  represented  the  sons  of 
well-to-do  people  like  Milton,  whose  father  at  that 
time  was  a  scrivener  and  stationer  in  London. 

I  have  not  been  able  to  verify  this  identification  of 
Thomas  as  the  brother  of  my  ancestor  John,  but  there 
are  many  things  that  tend  to  confirm  it,  among  these 
that  John  named  his  third  son  Thomas,  and  in  the 
settlement  of  his  estate,  provision  was  made  for  the 


[15] 

completion  of  the  education  of  his  youngest  son,  Ben- 
jamin, at  Harvard.  The  family  tradition  has  al- 
ways been  that  our  immigrant  ancestor  was  the  John 
Choate  who  was  baptized  by  that  name  in  the  old 
church  at  Groton,  in  England,  on  the  6th  of  June, 
1624.  I  verified  this  record  in  the  parish  church,  the 
same  church  in  which  Adam  Winthrop,  father  of  John 
Winthrop,  was  buried. 

Professor  Masson,  in  his  elaborate  history  of  Mil- 
ton, which  is  really  for  the  period  covered  by  it  a  his- 
tory of  England,  records  that  Milton  was  one  of 
forty-three  students  who  commenced  their  academic 
course  at  Christ's  College  in  the  year  1624. 

"It  will  be  noted  that  eight  of  the  students  in  the 
above  list  entered  as  '  lesser  pensioners/  among  whom 
were  Milton,  Pory  and  Choate,  four  as  'sizars/  and 
but  one  as  a  'greater  pensioner/  The  distinction  was 
one  of  rank.  All  the  three  grades  paid  for  their  board 
and  education,  and  in  this  respect  were  distinct  from 
the  'scholars'  properly  so  called,  who  belonged  to  the 
foundation.  But  the  'greater  pensioners'  or  'fellow- 
commoners  '  paid  most.  They  were  usually  the  sons 
of  wealthy  families;  and  they  had  the  privilege  of 
dining  at  the  upper  table  in  the  common  hall  along 
with  the  Fellows.  The  'sizars/  on  the  other  hand, 
were  poorer  students;  they  paid  least;  and,  though 
receiving  the  same  education  as  the  others,  they  had 
a  lower  rank  and  inferior  accommodation.  Inter- 
mediate between  the  greater  pensioners  and  the  siz- 
ars were  the  'lesser  pensioners';  and  it  was  to  this 


class  that  the  bulk  of  the  students  in  all  the  Colleges 
at  Cambridge  belonged.  Milton,  as  the  son  of  a 
London  scrivener  in  good  circumstances,  took  his 
natural  place  in  becoming  a  'lesser  pensioner.'  His 
school-fellow,  Robert  Pory,  who  entered  the  College 
in  the  same  year  and  month,  and  chose  the  same 
tutor,  entered  in  the  same  rank.  Milton's  father  and 
Pory's  father  must  have  made  up  their  minds,  in 
sending  their  sons  to  Cambridge,  to  pay  about  £50  a 
year  each,  in  the  money  of  that  day  which  was 
equivalent  to  about  £180  or  £200  a  year  now"  (that 
is,  in  1881),  and  we  must  conclude  that  Thomas 
Choate's  father  did  the  same. 

To  have  been  in  the  same  little  college  with  John 
Milton  continuously  for  four  years  must  have  insured 
to  him  a  liberal  education. 

I  have  no  doubt  of  the  substantial  accuracy  of  the 
statement  that  there  was  a  near  relationship  between 
Thomas  of  Christ's  and  our  ancestor  John  Choate, 
and  we  may  believe  that  the  family  at  that  date  was 
in  fairly  good  circumstances. 

John  Choate,  from  whom  all  the  people  of  the  name 
in  America,  now  found  in  great  numbers  in  all  the 
States  of  the  Union,  are  descended,  appears  to  have 
arrived  in  Ipswich  from  the  old  country  in  or  about 
the  year  1643.  The  earliest  mention  of  him  in  the 
records  is  in  1648,  when  he  appears  in  a  list  of  one 
hundred  and  sixty-one  persons  who  subscribed  to  a 
fund  to  pay  Major  Daniel  Dennison  for  giving  mili- 
tary instruction.  There  is  a  tradition  that  he  came 


[17] 

from  Sudbury,  in  England,  which  is  on  the  border  of 
Suffolk  and  Essex,  but  by  what  vessel  he  came  or  for 
what  reason  is  wholly  unknown. 

Like  most  of  the  other  immigrants  of  that  time, 
who  were  in  moderate  circumstances,  he  absolutely 
lost  all  connection  with  the  relatives  whom  he  had  left 
behind  him.  There  were  no  mails,  no  newspapers, 
no  regular  communication  between  the  mother  coun- 
try and  the  colonies.  Now  and  then  at  rare  intervals 
a  vessel  from  the  old  country  arrived,  but  it  was  very 
easy  to  lose  all  association  with  or  knowledge  of  the 
relatives  and  friends  they  had  left  behind  them. 

That  he  was  of  good  courage  and  character  is  mani- 
fest from  the  progress  that  he  made  after  his  arrival 
in  Ipswich.  That  he  went  diligently  to  work  and 
made  rapid  progress  in  acquiring  property  and  social 
connections  is  clear.  In  1660  he  married,  but  as  the 
first  records  of  the  church  in  Ipswich  have  been  lost 
and  the  town  records  at  the  beginning  were  very 
badly  kept,  there  is  no  register  of  his  marriage  and  no 
means  of  ascertaining  the  surname  of  his  wife  or  to 
what  family  she  belonged.  But  her  Christian  name 
was  Ann,  by  which  name  she  is  referred  to  in  his  will 
as  "my  dear  and  beloved  wife,  Ann  Choate."  That 
is  all  that  is  known  of  her  origin,  but  it  is  hoped  that 
her  family  name  will  yet  be  discovered. 

He  was  diligent  in  his  business  and  acquired  a  very 
considerable  estate,  so  that  by  his  will  he  was  able  to 
give  substantial  farms  or  tracts  of  real  estate  to  four 
of  his  five  sons  and  a  handsome  legacy,  as  things  were 


lit] 

at  that  time,  to  each  of  his  two  daughters.  An  in- 
ventory made  of  his  estate  amounted  to  405  pounds 
and  13  shillings,  and  his  will  was  witnessed  by  the 
celebrated  minister  of  Ipswich,  John  Wise,  to  whose 
congregation  he  belonged,  and  Andrew  Brown. 

His  eldest  son  disputed  the  will  because  he  did  not 
receive  by  it  a  double  portion,  as  seems  to  have  been 
the  fashion  at  that  time,  and  a  settlement  was  made 
between  the  widow,  representing  herself  and  two 
minor  sons,  Joseph  and  Benjamin,  and  the  other 
three  children.  In  the  agreement  by  which  the  estate 
was  settled,  provision  was  made  for  Benjamin  until 
he  "comes  to  commence  Bachelor  of  Arts,  and  to 
help  bring  up  the  said  Benjamin  in  and  at  said  Col- 
lege to  that  time."  We  know  that  he  was  graduated 
at  Harvard  in  1703,  the  earliest  of  the  name  in  the 
catalogue,  but  this  provision  which  was  made  by  the 
settlement  in  1697  must  have  covered  the  period  of 
two  years  at  school  before  he  entered  Harvard. 

John  Choate  and  his  third  son,  Thomas,  have  one 
truly  valuable  title  to  distinction,  and  that  is  that  at 
the  height  of  the  witchcraft  delusion,  when  almost 
everybody  else  was  mad,  they  had  the  courage  to 
sign  a  protest  in  behalf  of  John  Proctor  and  his  wife 
who  are  described*  as  "now  in  trouble  and  under  sus- 
pition  of  witchcraft/'  which  was  in  the  highest  degree 
significant.  The  protest  was  headed  by  John  Wise; 
and  the  signatures  of  John  Choate,  Sr.,  and  Thomas 

*  In  "Records  of  Salem  Witchcraft,"  vol.  I,  W.  Elliot  Woodward,  Roxbury, 
Mass.,  1864. 


Choate  appear  among  the  inhabitants  of  Ipswich 
who  joined  in  it  for  the  rescue  of  two  of  the  most 
conspicuous  victims — their  neighbor  and  his  wife. 
Among  other  things  they  say:  "What  God  may  have 
left  them  to,  we  cannot  go  into  God's  pavilion  clothed 
with  clouds  of  darkness  round  about;  but,  as  to  what 
we  have  ever  seen  or  heard  of  them,  upon  our  con- 
sciences we  judge  them  innocent  of  the  crime  ob- 
jected." As  Upham,  in  his  "  History  of  Salem  Witch- 
craft/' has  truly  said:  "It  is  due  to  the  memory  of 
these  signers  that  their  names  should  be  recorded,  and 
their  descendants  may  well  be  gratified  by  the  testi- 
mony thus  borne  to  their  courage  and  justice." 

He  had  another  greater  title  to  distinction  in  that 
he  was  the  progenitor  of  a  long  and  widely  scattered 
family  that  in  each  generation  has  done  good  service 
for  its  country.  All  of  the  sons  and  the  two  daugh- 
ters married  and  had  children.  The  families  were 
large  in  those  days  and  there  is  no  wonder  that  in 
two  hundred  and  forty-five  years  his  seed  has  been 
widely  disseminated. 

His  third  son,  Thomas,  from  whom  we  are  de- 
scended, was  evidently  more  enterprising  than  either  of 
his  brothers,  for  he  married  three  times;  first,  in  1690, 
when  he  was  nineteen  years  old;  second,  in  1734,  at  the 
age  of  sixty-three;  and  third,  in  1743,  at  the  age  of 
seventy-two;  showing  that  he  was  not  afraid  of  incur- 
ring the  responsibilities  of  matrimony  and  paternity. 
His  nine  children  all  married  and  all  had  children, 
none  of  them  less  than  four  and  one  as  many  as  twelve. 


II 

HOG  ISLAND 

Thomas  Choate,  who  was  born  in  1671  and  died  in 
1745  at  the  age  of  seventy-four,  appears  to  have  been 
a  man  of  uncommon  vigor  and  enterprise.  He  was 
undoubtedly  a  great  farmer  and  a  leading  citizen  of 
Ipswich,  and  their  representative  in  the  General 
Court  for  four  years.  He  it  was  who  acquired  the  land 
on  Hog  Island  where  he  and  his  descendants  have  to 
this  day  continually  resided. 

Life  on  the  island,  as  everywhere  in  Ipswich  in  his 
time,  must  have  been  extremely  simple  and  primi- 
tive. The  habits  and  customs  of  the  people  cannot 
have  changed  much  since  the  earliest  settlement  of 
the  colony,  and  the  only  communication  with  the 
outside  world  appears  to  have  been  when  the  head  of 
the  family  was  sent  to  represent  the  town  at  the 
meetings  of  the  General  Court  in  Boston. 

The  old-fashioned  New  England  discipline  pre- 
vailed. The  father  was  the  real  head  of  the  family; 
the  mother  was  the  mediator  between  him  and  the 
children,  who  were  entirely  subject  to  his  sway. 

His  third  son,  Francis,  was  my  ancestor,  born  in 
1701  and  died  in  1777,  and  that  generation  appears 
to  have  come  into  great  prominence  in  local  and  even 
State  affairs.  It  has  been  said  that  among  all  the 

[20] 


HOG  ISLAND. 

Named  from  the  shape  of  the  land.  The  land  was  acquired  by  John  Choate 
the  original  emigrant.  In  1690  his  son,  Thomas,  married  and  lived  there  for 
thirty-five  years. 


CHOATE  HOMESTEAD  ON  HOG   ISLAND. 

Built  in  1725  by  Francis  Choate,  great-great-grandfather  of  J.  H.  C.  Here,  in  1799, 
Rufus  Choate  was  born.  The  house  and  farm  are  still  in  the  possession  of  his 
branch  of  the  family. 


is  born  in  1671  and  died  in 
r,  appears  to  have  been 
d  enterprise. 


.(JVlA.I2f     OOT1 

sttoilD    aiM.  x«i  bsiiupoc  s*w  bnct  stTT     .bntl  arb  lo  s'i 

:i.it 


;• 


• 

to  1 

-ft'airs.  .av>j«  OOH  xo  ciA.g-ra.  ;n 


,p<?^i  ni  .3isH    .3  .H  1  lo  isrilB^bnti^lssia-JBais  .stsoiO  •iansi'?  -<d  J^'i  "' 
till  lo  noistazsoq  srfj  «i  liijs  3ifc  mifil  br.B  seuori  srfT    .mod  esw  aJsoriO  sulu^ 

.xlimsl  srfl  lo  rionfii 


[21] 

Choate  ancestors  none  were  so  illustrious  for  their 
piety  as  were  Esquire  Francis  and  his  good  wife  Han- 
nah. He  was  a  ruling  elder  and  is  credited  with 
having  been  a  tower  of  strength  in  the  Whitefield 
Movement,  and  to  the  end  of  his  life  the  right-hand 
man  of  his  pastor,  the  Reverend  John  Cleveland. 
Like  many  men  of  his  time  he  was  a  slaveholder,  but 
in  his  will  he  provided  for  the  freedom  of  his  slaves  or 
for  their  comfortable  support  should  they  become 
aged  and  unable  to  work. 

But  it  was  his  elder  brother,  Colonel  John  Choate, 
who  first  of  the  family  enacted  a  distinguished  part  in 
public  affairs.  In  all  that  concerned  the  common- 
wealth he  was  extremely  active  and  useful  and  was 
evidently  a  forceful  character  of  great  ability  and 
activity.  Between  1731  and  1760  he  was  elected  fif- 
teen times  as  representative  of  Ipswich  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  and  for  five  years  he  was  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Council.  During  his  long  term  of  legisla- 
tive service,  he  appears  to  have  been  on  all  important 
committees  and  on  many  special  commissions.  He 
was  called  upon  to  do  duty  on  all  sorts  of  important 
subjects.  In  1741  he  was  elected  speaker  of  the 
House,  but  Governor  Belcher  seems  to  have  been  dis- 
pleased and  dissolved  the  House  before  anything  fur- 
ther was  done. 

The  subjects  on  which  Colonel  John  Choate  was 
employed  included  the  Land  Bank,  the  settlement  of 
the  boundary  between  Rhode  Island  and  Massa- 
chusetts, an  inquiry  as  to  who  were  formerly  sufferers 


[22] 

as  Quakers  or  on  account  of  witchcraft  and  what  satis- 
faction had  been  made  by  the  General  Court  to  such 
sufferers,  on  bills  of  credit,  to  ascertain  their  rate  with 
gold  and  silver,  and  also  on  the  bills  of  credit  of  other 
provinces,  on  the  payment  of  taxes  and  other  financial 
matters.  He  went  on  the  expedition  against  Louis- 
burg  with  the  recruits  raised  for  that  service,  for 
which  he  had  leave  of  the  House  to  be  absent,  and 
was  commissioned  judge  advocate  of  the  Court  of 
Admiralty  at  Louisburg  after  his  arrival  there  with 
his  troops.  He  also  served  on  the  committee  on  en- 
couraging manufactures  and  other  industries  of  the 
province.  He  was  chosen  by  the  two  Houses  com- 
missioner to  meet  the  Six  Nations  of  New  York. 
From  1735  to  the  time  of  his  death,  thirty  years  after- 
wards, he  was  constantly  employed  on  important 
business  for  the  commonwealth. 

And  this  did  not  distract  him  from  purely  local  af- 
fairs, for  in  1764,  the  year  before  his  death,  he  built 
the  famous  Choate  bridge  over  the  Ipswich  River,  a 
stone  bridge  of  beautiful  proportions,  which  still 
stands  secure  as  on  the  day  it  was  opened,  although 
its  low  arches  were  such  a  novelty  in  that  region  that 
its  collapse  with  the  first  heavy  load  that  went  over 
it  was  loudly  predicted,  and  great  multitudes  are  said 
to  have  gathered  to  witness  the  catastrophe. 

His  nephew,  Stephen  Choate,  son  of  his  brother 
Thomas,  is  also  my  ancestor,  his  daughter  Susannah 
having  married  my  grandfather  George  Choate,  her 
cousin,  and  this  Stephen,  born  in  1727  and  who  died 


[23] 

in  1815,  was  also  a  great  public  character,  besides 
having  thirteen  children  and  a  great  troop  of  descen- 
dants. 

In  1774  he  was  elected  on  the  committee  of  corre- 
spondence which  had  so  much  to  do  with  the  origin 
of  the  great  movements  for  independence  which  re- 
sulted in  the  establishment  of  the  United  States  as  an 
independent  nation.  He  entered  the  General  Court 
as  a  representative  from  Ipswich  in  May,  1776,  when 
the  court  held  its  session  at  Watertown,  Boston  being 
in  the  hands  of  the  British  soldiers,  and  from  that 
time  he  was  annually  re-elected  until  1779,  after 
which  he  became  a  member  of  the  Senate  and  still 
later  of  the  Council.  He  served  for  many  years  as 
county  treasurer  and  was  a  constant  and  most  useful 
public  servant,  and  finally  he  was  a  member  of  the 
State  convention  that  framed  the  celebrated  Con- 
stitution of  Massachusetts  of  1780,  which  created  for 
that  State  a  government  of  laws  and  not  of  men.  It 
was  indeed  the  ideal  model  for  all  State  constitutions. 

Not  only  by  what  he  accomplished  in  life,  but  by 
the  pictures  of  him  that  have  come  down  to  us,  it  is 
evident  that  Stephen  Choate  was  a  man  of  strong  and 
robust  character  and  of  unyielding  tenacity  of  pur- 
pose. He  had  a  great  old  Roman  nose,  which  still 
reappears  occasionally  in  the  family,  and  a  chin  that 
showed  his  indomitable  will.  And  the  charming  pic- 
ture of  his  wife,  Mary  Low,  which  faces  his,  proves 
her  to  have  been  true  to  her  vow  to  "love,  honor,  and 
obey." 


[24] 

John  Choate,  the  son  of  Elder  Francis,  was  a  dele- 
gate to  the  State  convention  that  ratified  and  adopted 
the  Federal  Constitution  in  1788,  in  which  he  seems 
to  have  taken  an  active  part  in  support  of  the  Con- 
stitution and  seems  to  have  had  a  clear  appreciation 
of  the  merits  of  that  great  instrument,  under  which 
we  still  live.  He  participated  intelligently  in  the  de- 
bates, especially  on  the  subject  of  taxation,  as  appears 
in  "Elliot's  Debates"  and  in  those  published  by  the 
legislature  in  1856. 

But  I  must  resume  the  story  of  my  direct  descent. 
William  Choate,  son  of  Francis,  born  on  Hog  Island 
September  5th,  1730,  was  the  grandfather  of  my 
father.  For  many  years  he  followed  the  sea,  and  be- 
came a  shipmaster  and  owned  vessels  as  well  as  com- 
manded them.  Retiring  from  that,  he  established  a 
school  on  Hog  Island  and  gave  his  children  an  excel- 
lent education. 

I  have  in  my  possession  his  family  Bible,  not  only 
dog-eared  but  the  corners  fairly  worn  away  by  the 
pious  hands  that  turned  them,  and  by  this  it  ap- 
pears that  everything  on  Hog  Island  was  regulated 
by  the  tides,  as  they  could  only  reach  the  mainland 
at  highest  water.  I  transcribe  the  entries  of  his 
family  from  this  Bible,  as  long  as  he  lived  on  the 
island : 

"William  Choate  (son  of  Francis  Choate)  &  Mary 
Giddings  (daughter  of  Job  Giddings)  were  married 
Jan'y  i6th,  1756,  and  October  i8th,  1756  had  a  son 


[25] 

born,  who  lived  but  about  four  weeks — since  had 
other  children  born  (viz) 

"David  Choate  was  born  November  29th,  1757, 
Tuesday  in  ye  morning. 

"William  Choate  was  born  Friday,  August  roth, 
1759  at  high  water. 

"George  Choate  was  born  Wednesday,  February 
24th,  1764,  low  water  in  ye  morning." 

So  inveterate  had  the  habit  become  of  registering 
and  commemorating  the  births  of  the  children  by  the 
tide  that,  even  after  they  had  moved  away  from  the 
island  to  the  mainland  and  lived  on  farms  looking 
across  the  brook  to  the  island,  they  continued  for 
a  long  time  to  record  the  births  of  the  children  in 
the  same  way,  for  in  the  same  Bible  I  find  the  fam- 
ily record  of  my  grandfather,  George  Choate,  as 
follows : 

"George  Choate,  son  of  Captain  William  Choate 
and  Susannah  Choate,  daughter  of  Stephen  Choate, 
Esq.,  were  married  January  ist,  1789,  and  Sunday, 
October  i8th  had  a  daughter  still  born,  and  since 
then  had  other  children  namely: 

"William  Choate  was  born  Tuesday,  October 
26th,  1790  about  eight  o'clock  in  the  evening,  low 
water. 

"John  Choate  was  born  Monday,  July  i6th,  1792, 
about  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon  and  about  low 
water. 


[26] 

"George  Choate  (that  was  my  father)  was  born 
Monday,  November  7th,  1796,  at  nine  o'clock  in  the 
evening  about  four  hours  ebb." 

Captain  William  Choate  appears  to  have  been  a 
highly  intelligent  person.  He  fitted  for  college  in 
Salem,  and  his  father  desired  him  to  graduate  at  the 
university  and  become  a  clergyman,  but  his  own 
taste  did  not  lie  in  that  direction,  and  yet  he  was 
sufficiently  self-educated  to  instruct  his  own  four  sons 
in  navigation  and  other  studies. 

They  all  followed  the  sea  more  or  less.  David 
(who  was  the  father  of  Rufus)  sailed  to  Spain  and 
also  to  southern  ports  when  a  young  man.  His  son 
William  went  to  sea  eight  or  ten  years  before  his  re- 
moval to  Deny.  George  was  a  captain  before  he 
came  to  the  island,  and  Job  was  a  captain  between 
Europe  and  America  for  twenty  years. 

The  lives  of  Captain  William  and  his  son  George 
appear  to  have  been  singularly  alike — simple,  quiet, 
and  unobtrusive,  following  the  sea  at  times  and  farm- 
ing for  the  rest,  holding  important  local  public  of- 
fices, and  employed  by  their  fellow  townsmen  in  the 
management  of  their  affairs  and  enjoying  their  full 
confidence  and  esteem. 

George  represented  the  town  of  Ipswich  from  1814 
to  1817,  and  the  new  town  of  Essex  after  it  was  set  off 
in  1819,  and  he  held  various  other  offices  in  the  town. 

I  transcribe  from  the  notice  which  the  Salem  Ga- 
zette published  of  him  at  the  time  of  his  death,  as  fol- 
lows: 


STEPHEN  CHOATE— 1727-1815. 

Great-grandfather  of  J.  H.  C.    He  held  various  public  offices,  was  twice  married,  had 
thirteen  children,  and  lived  to  be  eighty-eight  years  old. 


,  Novcm-i 


Ca> 
hig! 
Sal- 
unK 

SU0» 


T 

tted  for  college  in 

e  at  the 

taa,  bui   his  own 


was 


Europf 
The  l; 

api 
ant. 

" 

mai 
confi 

.;.  181-^1— HTAOHJ   l/iatri 

bfirf  .bsinun  »a!wj  j«w  .asafflo  aitdixj  suohsv  blsd  »1 

-   -blirf:, 

T  Til  r    ,  •  '  j :    •:  i   vrtf- 


his  vson  George. 
;iple?  quiet, 

the 

;:  from  1814 
Her  it  was  set  off 


.bto.u 

pub; 


v;I  :  •;• 


[27] 

"Few  men  have  so  well  discharged  the  duties  of 
husband,  parent  and  citizen  as  Mr.  Choate.  He  was 
for  many  years  a  member  of  the  Legislature  from  Ips- 
wich, and  the  first  representative  from  Essex,  and  was 
much  employed  by  his  townsmen  in  the  management 
of  their  concerns,  deservedly  enjoying  their  highest 
confidence,  respect  and  esteem.  By  them  his  useful- 
ness will  be  long  remembered.  To  a  strength  and  pu- 
rity of  mind  there  was  united  a  quiet,  peaceful  and 
amiable  disposition,  which  greatly  endeared  him  to 
his  friends  and  acquaintances.  So  mindful  was  he  of 
the  rights  of  others  that,  as  he  never  made  an  enemy, 
so  certainly  he  has  not  left  one;  and  we  cannot  but 
admire  and  wish  to  imitate  that  discipline  of  mind 
and  feeling,  which  he  so  eminently  manifested,  and 
which  enabled  him  to  perform  the  duties  and  sustain 
the  fatigues  and  ills  of  life  without  a  murmur  or  com- 
plaint. The  virtues  of  honest  fidelity  and  benevo- 
lence will  not  perish  with  the  body.  For  the  upright 
and  faithful  there  remaineth  a  rest.  He  was  always 
deeply  interested  in  the  cause  of  education,  and  gave 
his  hearty  and  constant  support  to  the  institutions  of 
religion." 

He  appears  to  have  been  the  leading  spirit  in  the 
movement  for  the  separation  of  the  Chebacco  Ward  in 
the  town  of  Ipswich  and  its  incorporation  as  a  sepa- 
rate town  in  1818,  although  such  separation  was 
steadily  resisted  by  the  inhabitants  of  the  rest  of  the 
town. 

******** 

And  there  hang  the  portraits  of  my  father  and 


[28] 

mother,  looking  down  upon  me  from  the  wall,  photo- 
graphs taken  at  about  the  age  of  sixty,  both  very 
handsome,  very  earnest  and  a  little  anxious,  the  rea- 
son for  which  will  appear. 

My  father,  Doctor  George  Choate,  born  at  Che- 
bacco,  November  yth,  1796,  was  the  sixth  in  descent 
from  the  original  settler.  He  was  prepared  for  col- 
lege under  the  tuition  of  the  Reverend  Doctor  Wil- 
liam Cogswell,  then  master  of  the  North  District 
School  in  Chebacco,  supplemented  by  a  year  in 
Dummer  Academy  and  another  year  in  Atkinson 
Academy. 

He  entered  Harvard  in  1814  and  graduated  in  the 
class  of  '18,  which  numbered  eighty-one  members, 
the  largest  at  Harvard  up  to  that  time  and  until  my 
own  class  of  '52,  which  numbered  eighty-eight,  both 
in  striking  contrast  to  the  enormous  numbers  in  more 
recent  classes. 

When  he  presented  himself  for  examination,  his 
name  seemed  to  give  great  trouble  to  the  examiners, 
for  the  Latin  professor,  who  thought  there  must  be 
one  syllable  for  every  separate  vowel,  in  calling  the 
list  addressed  him,  as  he  told  me,  as  "Co-a-te." 

His  classmates  included  such  men  as  Professor  John 
Hooker  Ashmun,  Sidney  Bartlett,  Francis  Brinley, 
William  Emerson  (the  brother  of  Ralph  Waldo  Emer- 
son), the  Reverend  Doctors  Farley  and  Noyes,  and 
General  Henry  K.  Oliver. 

The  curriculum  and  routine  of  education,  from 
what  he  told  me,  seems  not  to  have  changed  much 


from  the  earliest  period,  chiefly  consisting  of  learning 
by  rote  and  recitations  from  the  books  studied. 

Upon  the  subsequent  settlement  of  his  father's 
estate,  which  was  inconsiderable  in  amount,  a  few 
years  afterwards,  it  was  found  that  George  had  re- 
ceived the  whole  amount  of  his  share  to  pay  for  his 
education.  In  fact,  from  the  time  of  his  graduation 
he  had  to  rely  wholly  upon  his  own  resources,  which 
made  his  professional  and  personal  success  in  life  cer- 
tain. 

To  obtain  the  means  of  prosecuting  his  professional 
studies  he  was  for  two  years  master  of  the  "  Feoffee's 
Latin  School"  in  Ipswich,  and  at  the  same  time  was 
engaged  in  the  study  of  medicine  with  the  late  Doctor 
Thomas  Manning,  a  celebrated  practitioner  of  his 
day,  and  two  years  more  were  spent  in  the  office  of  the 
late  Doctor  George  C.  Shattuck,  of  Boston,  one  of  the 
most  eminent  physicians  of  his  time.  His  relations 
with  Doctor  Shattuck  continued  until  the  latter's 
death  to  be  of  a  most  friendly  and  cordial  character. 
I  well  remember  the  kindly  hospitality  of  the  old  gen- 
tleman at  his  stately  residence  at  the  corner  of  Cam- 
bridge and  Staniford  Streets  in  Boston,  where  he 
often  entertained  my  brothers  and  myself  while  in 
college  in  the  most  paternal  and  friendly  way. 

In  1822  he  received  the  degree  of  M.D.  at  the  Har- 
vard Medical  School  and  immediately  entered  upon 
the  practice  of  his  profession  in  Salem.  His  success 
from  the  start  was  pronounced  and  continued  for  a 
period  of  nearly  forty  years.  His  practice  extended 


[30] 

through  the  neighboring  towns  and  involved  the  most 
strenuous  labor,  but  he  was  not  content  with  profes- 
sional success  alone,  for  he  was  a  man  of  genuine 
public  spirit  and  took  an  active  part  in  all  the  affairs 
of  the  community,  which  constantly  relied  upon  his 
advice  and  assistance. 

For  many  years  he  was  president  of  the  Essex 
South  District  Medical  Society  and  of  the  Salem 
Athenaeum.  After  withdrawing  from  practice,  he  rep- 
resented Salem  for  several  years  in  the  General 
Court,  and  previously  he  served  efficiently  as  chair- 
man of  the  school  committee  and  as  an  active  mem- 
ber of  the  Board  of  Aldermen. 

He  was  a  pillar  of  the  First  Church,  the  church  of 
Francis  Higginson  and  Hugh  Peters  and  Roger  Wil- 
liams. He  was  deeply  interested  in  all  the  historical 
traditions  of  that  ancient  congregation,  and  at  the 
installation  of  a  new  clergyman  in  1848  he  officiated 
as  chairman  of  the  committee,  and,  after  the  manner 
adopted  by  the  brethren  at  the  installation  of  Higgin- 
son and  Skelton  in  1629,  made  the  address  which  in- 
ducted the  new  pastor  into  office,  in  exact  conformity 
with  what  was  done  in  the  church  at  its  foundation 
two  hundred  and  nineteen  years  before. 

His  interest  in  education  was  very  remarkable  and 
never-failing,  and  he  heartily  sustained  the  efforts  of 
Horace  Mann  for  the  reform  of  the  school  system  of 
Massachusetts,  which  wrought  such  a  wonderful 
change  in  that  system.  I  well  remember  his  taking 
me  with  him  in  his  chaise  to  Topsfield,  where  he  went 


[31] 

to  attend  a  teachers'  convention  at  which  Mr.  Mann 
was  to  be  present.  And  as  the  distinguished  reformer 
was  desirous  of  getting  to  Salem  that  night  my 
father  invited  him  to  drive  home  with  him,  and  as 
there  was  no  other  place  for  me  I  sat  all  the  way 
upon  Mr.  Mann's  lap,  which  I  have  always  regarded 
as  the  actual  beginning  of  my  education. 

The  lives  of  my  father  and  mother  were  truly 
heroic  in  the  matter  of  the  training  of  their  own  chil- 
dren. Having  four  sons  and  two  daughters,  they  de- 
termined at  all  hazards  to  give  them  the  best  educa- 
tion that  the  times  afforded,  and  in  so  doing  they  set 
them  a  wonderful  example  of  self-control,  self-denial, 
and  self-sacrifice.  Everything  else  was  subordinated 
to  this  high  ideal  and  they  denied  themselves  every- 
thing else  to  accomplish  this  lofty  purpose. 

At  that  period  I  cannot  recall  my  father  ever  taking 
a  holiday,  except  for  one  hot  afternoon  in  summer, 
when  he  drove  the  whole  family  in  a  carry-all  to 
Phillips's  Beach  for  a  sail  and  a  fish  supper.  All  the 
rest  of  the  time,  summer  and  winter,  was  devoted 
without  stint  to  constant  work. 

Social  enjoyments  were  very  limited  and  our  family 
life  was  in  striking  contrast  to  that  which  prevails 
among  well-to-do  people  to-day.  But  they  succeeded 
to  a  very  remarkable  degree  and  gave  their  children 
an  inheritance  which  was  far  more  precious  than  any 
amount  of  wealth  would  have  been.  Many  a  time 
have  I  seen  him  pay  out  what  was  nearly  his  last 
dollar  for  the  settlement  of  our  college  bills,  and 


[32] 

all  he  had  to  give  us  by  will  was  a  hundred  dollars 
apiece. 

But  his  triumph  was  of  the  most  signal  character, 
for  the  Harvard  College  annual  catalogue  of  1848-49 
contained  the  names  of  all  his  four  sons,  one  a  medical 
student,  one  a  senior,  and  two  freshmen.  And  when 
I  recall  that  all  this  was  accomplished  out  of  his  nar- 
row professional  income,  when  his  ordinary  fee  for  a 
visit  was  seventy-five  cents  and  seven  dollars  and  a 
half  for  bringing  a  new  child  into  the  world,  it  is 
hardly  possible  to  conceive  how  he  could  have  done  it. 

But  they  had  their  reward  in  the  success  of  their 
sons  and  daughters  and  in  their  most  fervent  grati- 
tude. I  remember  that  when  my  brother  William 
and  I  graduated  at  Harvard  in  1852,  William  was  the 
first  scholar  in  the  class;  so  much  so  that  there  was 
really  nobody  second,  and  the  faculty  with  an  un- 
usual manifestation  of  sentiment  gave  him  at  com- 
mencement the  Valedictory  Oration  which  was  his  as 
a  matter  of  right,  and  to  me,  although  I  was  only  the 
fourth  scholar,  the  Salutatory  Oration,  which  did  not 
belong  to  me  at  all,  so  that  we  sandwiched  the  class 
between  us  in  the  exercises  of  that  day. 

And  when  my  mother  appeared,  with  her  character- 
istic modesty  and  shyness,  Mrs.  Sparks,  the  wife  of 
the  president,  greeted  her  with  the  question:  "Why, 
Mrs.  Choate,  how  did  you  come  up  from  Salem  ?" 

My  mother  answered:  "I  came  in  the  usual  way, 
by  the  train  to  Boston  and  to  Cambridge  in  the  om- 
nibus." 


[33] 

Mrs.  Sparks  exclaimed:  "You  ought  not  to  have 
come  in  that  way;  you  ought  to  have  come  in  a 
chariot  drawn  by  peacocks.  Such  a  thing  as  this  has 
never  been  known  before  in  the  history  of  Harvard — 
two  brothers  sandwiching  the  class  on  the  commence- 
ment programme!'* 

I  suppose  there  may  be  many  similar  examples  of 
parental  devotion  and  self-sacrifice  among  us  to-day, 
but  they  are  not  apparent.  In  those  days  the  rule 
was  duty  first  and  pleasure  afterwards,  and  if  duty 
occupied  all  the  time  it  must  be  performed  at  all 
risks  and  let  the  pleasure  go.  Nowadays,  so  far  as  I 
can  observe,  among  successful  people  pleasure  oc- 
cupies a  much  more  prominent  place  and  is  not  neces- 
sarily sacrificed  to  duty.  When  I  look  around  me  and 
see  fathers  and  mothers  devoted  to  pleasure,  to 
bridge-parties  and  dancing  and  the  various  other 
forms  of  social  entertainment,  I  often  wonder  what 
the  moral  effect  will  be  upon  their  children  who  can- 
not help  seeing  it  all. 

At  any  rate,  the  old  way  created  an  indissoluble 
bond  between  parents  and  children,  and  for  one, 
throughout  life  I  have  never  made  any  important  de- 
cision without  wondering  what  my  father  and  mother 
would  have  said  about  it. 

Some  day  the  present  carnival  of  sport  and  plea- 
sure will  be  checked  and  an  era  of  self-denial  and  sacri- 
fice will  come  again.  Fathers  and  mothers  such  as  I 
have  described  mine  to  have  been  do  really  constitute 
the  pride  and  glory  of  the  commonwealth,  as  they 


[34] 

have  been  from  the  earliest  days  of  the  colony,  when 
everything  else  was  subordinated  to  working  out  the 
salvation  of  themselves  and  their  children.  Of  course, 
it  is  money  that  is  doing  the  mischief,  and  fortunately 
does  not  affect  nine-tenths  of  the  people  of  the  coun- 
try, who  have  really  to  work  for  their  daily  bread; 
among  whom  must  in  every  generation  be  found 
thousands  of  instances  of  parents  who  sacrifice  the 
present  to  the  future  and  forego  everything  else  to 
make  sure  of  the  education  of  their  children. 

My  father  at  last  paid  a  fearful  penalty  for  the 
constant  overwork  and  nervous  tension  of  his  earlier 
years,  for  at  about  the  age  when  his  father  and  grand- 
father had  died,  his  health  failed  entirely,  and  he 
lived  an  invalid  for  more  than  seventeen  years.  It 
was  here  that  the  supreme  patience  and  fortitude  of 
my  mother,  which  she  had  derived  constitutionally 
from  her  father,  proved  such  a  priceless  blessing  in 
enabling  her  during  that  long  period  to  comfort  and 
care  for  him. 


DOCTOR  GEORGE  CHOATE. 

Born  at  Ipswich,  1796;  died  at  Cambridge,  1880,  in  the  eighty-fourth  year  of 
his  age — father  of  J.  H.  C.  This  silhouette  was  evidently  made  as  he  approached 
middle  age. 


id; 

,ad  he 

t?  ir: 
omfort 


.3TAOHD  3OH03O  flOTDOd 

arfj  ni  ,o33l   .agbhrfmsD  J«  bsib    :09^l   ,rbiw»ql  JB  a 
sd  as  absm  ^bnabiva  asw  3«3L-odJia  eidT    .3  .H  -t  to  -adtti — sgs  3cd 


Ill 

CHILDHOOD 

And  now  I  come  to  my  own  birth,  which  took  place 
at  Salem  on  the  24th  of  January,  1832.  I  have  never 
had  my  horoscope  cast,  but  it  must  have  been  pro- 
pitious to  account  for  the  cheerful  temperament 
which  has  marked  my  whole  life,  always  looking  on 
the  bright  side  and  making  the  best  of  everything  as 
it  came,  which  has  been  in  itself  a  great  fortune, 
worth  more  than  many  millions. 

The  earliest  written  record  of  my  appearance  in  the 
world  is  contained  in  a  letter  written  on  the  following 
Sunday  by  one  of  my  aunts  to  another,  in  which  she 
says: 

"Margaret  was  confined  last  Tuesday  with  the 
largest  boy  she  ever  had.  She  continued  comfortable 
for  three  days.  Since  I  have  not  heard,  but  pre- 
sume she  remained  so.  She  has  put  her  child  out  to 


nurse." 


As  I  was  the  fifth  child  and  the  fourth  boy,  the 
oldest  not  yet  five,  my  size  spoke  well  for  me  at  the 
start,  and  the  reason  that  I  was  put  away  so  sum- 
marily was  that  all  the  other  children  at  the  time  had 
the  whooping-cough,  for  in  those  days  it  was  sup- 
posed, as  I  believe  it  is  now,  that  the  whooping-cough 
was  fatal  to  new-born  infants. 

[35] 


[36] 

At  any  rate,  I  was  wrapped  up  in  a  blanket  im- 
mediately after  my  birth  and  carried  over  to  the 
banks  of  the  North  River,  where  the  selected  nurse, 
Mrs.  Law,  dwelt,  and  there  I  remained  for  seventeen 
months,  which  can  only  be  accounted  for  on  the 
theory  that  I  was  regarded  at  home  as  one  too  many, 
who  would  be  only  in  the  way  if  returned  to  the  pa- 
rental mansion. 

There  was  once  a  malicious  suggestion  that  during 
this  protracted  separation  from  the  family  my  iden- 
tity was  in  some  mysterious  way  changed,  and  that 
I  was  only  a  changeling  after  all.  But  one  had  only 
to  look  at  my  mother's  features,  which  were  exactly 
like  my  own,  to  see  how  groundless  this  suspicion  was. 
It  only  had  its  origin  in  the  fact  that  I  was  really 
quite  unlike  all  the  rest  of  the  children  in  temper  and 
disposition. 

This  must  have  had  some  effect  upon  my  character 
at  that  early  day,  for  my  mother,  writing  to  her  sister- 
in-law  on  the  loth  of  February,  1834,  says:  "I  have 
no  baby  you  know  to  keep  me  at  home,  for  Joseph  is 
two  years  old,  although  rather  troublesome.  He  was 
seventeen  months  old  when  we  took  him  home.  He 
had  been  indulged  so  much  we  found  him  rather  diffi- 
cult to  manage,"  a  condition  which,  I  fear,  continued 
some  time  afterwards;  but,  anyhow,  I  had  to  fight  for 
my  place  in  the  family  and  gradually  secured  it. 

But  I  was  not  long  to  enjoy  undisturbed  the  do- 
mestic felicity  of  home  which  I  had  thus  regained. 
In  those  days,  when  servants  were  few  and  nurses  for 


[37] 

the  children  almost  unknown,  the  sooner  they  were 
sent  to  school  the  better  for  all  concerned,  and  it 
must  have  been  an  immense  relief  to  my  mother  for  a 
great  part  of  the  day  when  all  the  five  children  were 
already  in  school.  My  earliest  recollection  is  of  being 
taken  by  the  hand  by  my  brother  William,  who  was 
a  year  and  a  half  older — I  was  two  and  a  half — and 
led  to  the  Dame's  School,  which  I  attended  until  I  was 
seven  years  old. 

It  was  the  simplest  affair  possible,  kept  by  an  aged 
spinster,  Miss  Lewis,  and  her  widowed  sister,  Mrs. 
Streeter,  and  attended  by  some  twenty  boys  and 
girls,  the  children  of  our  neighbors  and  friends. 

I  perfectly  remember  my  first  morning  at  the 
school,  when  I  was  put  in  charge  of  the  biggest  girl 
among  the  scholars,  who  afterwards  became  a  digni- 
fied matron  of  the  city,  the  wife  of  a  distinguished 
lawyer  and  the  mother  of  a  considerable  family. 
The  schoolroom  was  of  moderate  dimensions,  the 
boys  upon  one  side  of  the  stove,  which  occupied  the 
centre,  and  the  girls  upon  the  other. 

The  only  punishment  that  I  remember  at  the  school 
for  any  boy  who  misbehaved  was  to  be  put  over  to  sit 
among  the  girls.  This  was  a  little  awkward  at  first, 
but  I  soon  got  used  to  it  and  liked  it  very  much. 

It  was  like  a  modern  kindergarten  without  the  ap- 
paratus, but  we  did  learn  to  read  and  write  and  cipher 
there,  so  that  I  cannot  recall  the  time  when  I  could 
not  do  all  of  those  things. 

Mr.  William  M.  Evarts,  with  whom  I  long  after- 


[38] 

wards  became  associated,  is  recorded  in  the  life  of  his 
father  to  have  read  the  Bible  perfectly  well  at  three 
years  old.  I  do  not  think  that  I  was  quite  equal  to 
that,  but  certainly  had  begun  to  read  at  that  age. 

The  surroundings  of  the  school  were  attractive. 
Across  Sewall  Street,  where  it  was  situated,  and  this 
was  within  a  stone's  throw  of  my  father's  house,  there 
was  a  wheelwright,  and  it  was  great  fun  for  the  chil- 
dren to  gather  about  this  skilful  mechanic  and  watch 
his  work.  His  name  was  Ira  Patch.  At  the  corner, 
as  we  turned  into  Sewall  Street  from  Essex  Street, 
was  quite  a  noted  hardware  store  kept  by  Robert 
Peele,  and  his  shop-window  with  its  wonderful  collec- 
tion of  all  kinds  of  hardware  was  a  constant  attrac- 
tion. But  best  of  all,  in  immediate  contiguity  with 
the  schoolhouse,  was  a  famous  blacksmith  shop  kept 
by  Benjamin  Cutts,  whose  forge  in  active  operation 
it  was  a  daily  delight  to  watch.  He  was  something 
more  to  us  than  a  mere  neighbor,  for  sometimes,  when 
one  of  the  boys,  who  was  constitutionally  refractory, 
became  unmanageable  the  schoolmistress  called  out : 
"Send  for  Mr.  Cutts  !  Send  for  Mr.  Cutts  !"  and  the 
sturdy  blacksmith  came  in  to  the  rescue  and  sup- 
pressed the  offender. 

These  dame's  schools  were  a  peculiar  and  very  im- 
portant institution  of  New  England  and  had  been  so 
from  its  foundation.  Each  was  entirely  independent, 
related  in  no  way  to  any  other  school,  and  contributed 
substantially  to  the  support  of  otherwise  helpless 
dames  and  to  the  welfare  of  their  little  charges.  I 


[39] 

have  no  idea  or  recollection  of  what  the  tuition-fees 
were,  but  they  must  have  been  infinitely  small.  And 
yet  they  constituted  all  that  my  father  ever  paid  for 
my  education  until  I  entered  Harvard  College. 

The  town  schools  at  that  time  were  in  an  extremely 
rude  and  primitive  state,  very  much  as  they  must 
have  been  for  two  hundred  years  at  least.  I  remem- 
ber perfectly  well  being  taken  by  the  hand  by  my 
father  the  morning  I  was  seven  years  old  and  taken 
to  the  public  school,  an  alarming  experience,  indeed, 
for  the  master,  Abner  Brooks,  had  the  reputation  of 
being  a  perfect  terror.  He  was  a  weakly  man  and 
made  up  for  that  infirmity  by  a  liberal  use  of  the  cow- 
hide, which  he  applied  very  freely. 

The  Centre  School,  as  it  was  called,  was  in  Wash- 
ington Street,  and  was  kept  in  one  large  room,  where 
there  must  have  been  about  fifty  boys  from  seven 
years  old  to  fifteen.  We  sat  on  benches,  which 
stretched  across  the  room  from  front  to  rear  with  an 
aisle  between,  on  a  sloping  floor,  and  as  the  youngest 
boys  were  on  the  back  seat,  I  was  marched  up  in  the 
face  of  the  whole  room  to  my  place  there.  It  was 
really  a  terrible  experience. 

All  the  teaching  was  done  by  this  one  man,  who 
heard  the  successive  classes  recite  from  nine  to  twelve 
in  the  morning  and  from  two  to  five  in  the  afternoon. 
At  the  close  of  every  day  a  group  of  offenders  were 
stopped  after  school  to  receive  the  application  of  the 
rod,  and  this  was  in  addition  to  the  use  of  the  long 
rod  which  would  reach  the  backs  of  half  a  dozen  boys 


[40] 

on  the  same  bench  and  was  applied  from  the  central 
aisle. 

On  the  whole,  it  was  a  pretty  brutal  affair.  There 
were  no  games  and  no  recreation  at  the  school.  The 
only  thing  that  might  be  so  considered  was  when  a 
new  load  of  wood  came.  The  best  boys  were  allowed 
to  get  it  in,  which  was  regarded  as  a  special  privilege. 
Certainly  there  must  have  been  much  waste  of  time 
in  the  years  that  I  spent  at  that  school. 

The  master  had  no  special  gift  for  teaching.  It 
certainly  was  a  dreary  routine,  with  little  to  mitigate 
the  rudeness  and  dreariness  of  it.  But  now  and  then, 
when  our  school-teacher  felt  uncommonly  well,  he 
would  make  us  a  little  speech  and  say  that  hereafter 
he  was  going  to  rule  by  love,  and  as  proof  of  it  he 
would  cut  up  both  his  cowhides  and  have  them  burned 
up  in  the  stove.  But  in  a  few  days  this  did  not  prove 
satisfactory,  and  new  rods  were  purchased  and  never 
spared  for  fear  of  spoiling  the  children. 

Happily  for  us  all,  Horace  Mann  soon  came  to  the 
rescue  and  convinced  the  people  of  Massachusetts 
that  decent  and  sanitary  schoolhouses  and  humane 
treatment  and  skilled  teachers  really  qualified  for 
their  task,  were  the  best  investment  that  the  State 
could  make.  New  schoolhouses  of  fine  proportions, 
built  on  sanitary  principles,  began  to  rise  throughout 
the  State  of  Massachusetts,  normal  schools  came  into 
being,  and  a  board  of  education  was  created  which 
bore  the  responsibility  of  the  general  conduct  of  these 
schools  throughout  the  State.  The  ancient  town  of 


Salem,  at  the  time  of  my  birth  not  yet  a  city,  was  a 
unique  and  most  wholesome  place  in  which  to  be 
born  and  bred.  It  was  a  place  of  about  fifteen  thou- 
sand inhabitants,  fourteen  miles  from  Boston,  to  and 
from  which  city  the  stage  ran  every  day  but  Sunday. 
It  had  two  newspapers,  The  Salem  Register  and  The 
Salem  Gazette,  printed  by  hand-presses,  and  published 
each  twice  a  week,  so  that  we  were  comparatively  se- 
cluded from  the  rest  of  the  world,  hearing  from  Boston 
every  afternoon,  from  New  York  about  twice  a  week, 
and  from  Europe  about  once  a  month.  Consequently 
our  people  were  thrown  very  much  upon  themselves 
and  took  an  intense  interest  in  local  affairs,  and  had 
but  a  scanty  knowledge  of  what  was  going  on  in  the 
rest  of  the  world.  Steam  and  electricity  had  not  yet 
begun  their  wonderful  work  there,  friction-matches 
were  just  invented  and  regarded  as  a  great  curiosity, 
and  I  remember  my  father  bringing  home  a  piece  of 
anthracite  coal,  a  kind  of  fuel  hitherto  wholly  un- 
known, and  making  great  complaint  because,  when 
put  in  the  fireplace,  it  would  not  burn. 

We  lived  in  an  old  brick  house  of  large  dimensions, 
looking  out  upon  the  west  upon  the  grounds  of  Bar- 
ton Square  Church  with  their  fine  elm-trees  and  with 
a  great  garden  in  the  rear.  There  was  no  furnace  in 
the  house,  the  only  mode  of  heating  being  by  stoves 
and  open  grates  and  fireplaces  for  wood,  of  which  I 
remember  only  three,  one  in  my  father's  office,  one  in 
mother's  room,  and  one  in  a  large  sitting-room,  where 
we  all  sat  and  lived  and  worked  together.  There  was 


[42] 

no  gas  as  yet  and  our  only  lights  were  candles,  brass 
oil-lamps,  and  astral  lamps  with  glass  chimneys  and 
shades,  which  gave  the  best  light  we  had. 

This  house  had  been  purchased  by  my  grandfather 
Hodges  just  before  the  marriage  of  my  father  and 
mother,  as  the  deed  of  record  in  the  Registry  of  Deeds 
shows.  It  had  already  some  historic  interest,  for  it 
was  there  that  Count  Rumford,  then  known  as  Ben- 
jamin Thompson,  served  his  apprenticeship  in  the 
general  store  of  Mr.  Appleton,  who  then  owned  the 
house.  This  must  have  been  a  few  years  before  the 
outbreak  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  for  his  biography 
says  that  he  was  at  the  age  of  fourteen  sufficiently 
advanced  in  algebra,  chemistry,  astronomy,  and  even 
the  higher  mathematics  to  calculate  a  solar  eclipse 
within  four  seconds  of  accuracy.  Certainly  he  was 
one  of  the  earliest  of  infant  phenomena.  It  is  fur- 
ther recorded  that  in  1776  he  was  apprenticed  to  a 
storekeeper  in  Salem,  and  while  in  that  employment 
occupied  himself  in  chemical  and  mechanical  experi- 
ments, as  well  as  engraving,  in  which  he  attained 
some  proficiency.  The  outbreak  of  the  Revolution- 
ary War  put  a  stop  to  the  trade  of  his  master,  and  he 
thereupon  left  Salem  and  went  to  Boston,  where  he 
engaged  himself  as  assistant  in  another  store,  and 
began  his  wonderful  and  most  romantic  career,  marry- 
ing at  nineteen  a  woman  of  property,  his  senior  by 
fourteen  years,  sailing  for  England  on  the  evacuation 
of  Boston  by  the  royal  troops  in  1776,  knighted  by 
George  the  Third,  and  all  the  time  making  very  im- 


HOUSE  OF  DOCTOR  GEORGE  CHOATE  ON  ESSEX  STREET,  SALEM. 


This  house  was  given  to  Mrs.  George  Choate  by  her  father,  Gamaliel  Hodges,  on  the 
occasion  of  her  marriage  to  Doctor  Choate,  and  here  all  her  six  children  were 
born.  It  was  also  in  this  house  that  Count  Rumford  served  as  apprentice  to 
Mr.  Appleton  before  the  Revolutionary  War. 


HODGES  HOUSE  ON  ESSEX  STREET,  SALEM. 

A  good   specimen  of  the  style  of  the  period.      Owned   by   John   Hodges,   uncle 
of  J.  H.  C. 


grandfat 

HC  -y  f*ther  and 

;istryofDe< 
^roric  interest,  for  it 

was  there  that  Count  K  nowii  as  Ben- 

jamin -son,  serve.:  in  the 

general  store  of  Mr.  Aj-  >e<J  the 

ho;;  nust  h 

the  Rr 


.1/3  JA8  ,T33flTi:  X''l383  HO    21TAOH3  3OflO3lO  flOKXXL  1O  38UOH 

srfj  no  .BsgboH  IsilcoifiO  .laitoel  iad  \d  aJsorfO  sgioaO  .aiM  oJ  nsvig  eev/  Muori  ildT 
919W  nsibfuia  xi«  isil  Us  aisri  bnE  ,3JsoiiO  ioJ3otI  oj  sgshiftm  isrf  io  noiesaao 
ol  e-jijnsiqqe  ?s  LevisB  btolmu^I  inuoO  }£(L>  aeuc.i  eirfj  ni  O-;!B  SBW  jl     .niod 
.i«W  •{isnoiJakmH  »rfl  a-ioSsd  noJskjqA  .tM 

ther  rccotdtd  that  ;;  ^  to  a 

storekeeper  in  Sale  >:  in  that  employment 

occupied  himself  in  c*  nd  mechanical  experi- 

ments, as  well  a*  -ned 
some  proficieii 

ary  War  put  a  ne 

thereupon  left  '  ne 

engaged  himscl  arjd 

h  is  wond  eri  »na  r  ry- 

at  nineteen  a  senior  by 

:uation 

L»y  the  ''i  by 

-<MTa  xiiaaa  no  aatjoH  satoacM    \'<r.ry  im- 


sbau   .jsgboH    ndol   \d   bsnwO      .bohaq  silt  \o  s!\Jz  silj  lo  asraiosqi   boos   A 
.D  .H  1  lo 


[43] 

portant  inventions  and  discoveries,  many  of  which 
have  lasted  until  the  present  day,  made  a  count  of 
the  Holy  Roman  Empire  by  the  King  of  Bavaria,  and 
marrying  for  his  second  wife  the  wealthy  widow  of 
Lavoisier,  the  great  French  chemist  who  was  guil- 
lotined by  Robespierre  for  his  great  services  to  man- 
kind. I  am  sorry  to  say  that  with  his  last  wife  he  led 
an  extremely  uncomfortable  life,  until  at  last  they 
agreed  to  separate,  and  he  died  in  peace  in  1814, 
having  established  Rumford  Medals  in  the  Royal 
Society  and  the  American  Academy  of  Arts  and 
Sciences,  and  the  Rumford  Professorship  in  Harvard 
University.  How  much  of  this  erratic  and  successful 
career  was  due  to  his  long  residence  as  apprentice  in 
our  house,  it  is  hard  to  say,  but  we  may  claim  the 
credit  of  all  that  was  creditable  in  it. 


IV 
SALEM 

Salem,  which  continued  to  be  my  home  for  the  first 
twenty-three  years  of  my  life,  was  a  most  unique  and 
delightful  place.  It  was  so  old,  so  queer,  so  different 
from  all  other  places  upon  which  the  sun  in  his  west- 
ern journey  looked  down,  so  full  of  grand  historical 
reminiscences,  so  typical  of  everything  that  has  ever 
occurred  in  the  annals  of  American  life,  that  it  was  a 
great  piece  of  good  fortune  to  be  born  there.  The 
natives  of  the  place  were  a  little  older  to  the  cubic 
inch  than  men  born  at  exactly  the  same  moment  in 
any  other  part  of  America.  It  could  not  possibly  be 
otherwise  with  human  beings  born  and  bred  in  those 
old  houses,  which  have  cradled  so  many  of  our  race 
for  upwards  of  two  centuries,  that  humanity  itself 
had  got  used  to  being  started  there,  and  found  itself 
an  old  story  at  the  beginning.  Comparing  a  new-born 
Salem  baby  with  an  infant  born  at  the  same  moment 
in  Kansas,  or  Colorado,  or  Montana,  I  venture  to  say 
that  the  microscope  would  disclose  a  physical  differ- 
ence, a  slight — perhaps  a  very  slight — mould  of  an- 
tiquity, which  all  the  waters  of  Wenham  Pond  could 
never  wash  away. 

It  was  the  very  spot  where  Endicott  had  landed  in 

[44] 


[45] 

1628,  and  John  Winthrop,  the  leader  of  the  great 
Puritan  host  which  came  over  in  1629.  It  had  been 
the  scene  of  the  terrible  witchcraft  delusion  in  1692, 
when  all  the  people  of  Massachusetts,  from  the  gov- 
ernor down,  led  by  the  infernal  doctrines  of  the 
clergy  of  that  day,  headed  by  the  notorious  Cotton 
Mather,  really  believed  that  satan  himself  was  actu- 
ally present  among  them  seeking  whom  he  might  de- 
vour; all  which  resulted  in  the  cruel  slaughter  upon 
the  gallows  of  twenty  of  the  most  respectable  people 
of  the  place,  and  left  a  cloud  upon  its  good  name 
which  will  never  be  effaced. 

In  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  Gov- 
ernor Burnett  had  transferred  the  General  Court  to 
Salem,  but  they  refused  to  do  any  business  there  be- 
cause it  was  not  their  proper  place,  and  again  when 
General  Gage,  in  1774,  arrived  he  attempted  to  trans- 
fer the  legislature  to  Salem,  which  was  the  scene  of 
great  activity  and  conflict  between  the  royal  author- 
ities and  the  people  during  that  year.  It  has  always 
been  claimed  by  the  people  at  Salem  that  the  first 
blood  of  the  Revolution  was  shed  there  at  the  old 
North  Bridge  when  Colonel  Leslie  one  Sunday  morn- 
ing led  a  company  of  royal  troops  from  Marblehead 
to  capture  a  quantity  of  arms  and  munitions  stored 
there,  but  was  dissuaded  from  making  the  seizure  by 
the  influence  of  its  leading  citizens. 

From  the  beginning  the  port  had  been  the  scene  of 
a  steadily  growing  commerce,  Salem  ships  being  the 
first  to  penetrate  the  distant  regions  of  India  and 


[46] 

China,  and  bringing  home  cargoes  of  fabulous  value, 
which  enriched  many  of  the  leading  people.  Many 
great  fortunes  had  been  made  there,  most  of  which 
had  already  been  transmitted  to  the  second  genera- 
tion before  my  birth. 

The  First  Church  in  Salem,  in  which  I  was  brought 
up  (being  required  to  attend  two  sessions  there  every 
Sunday,  summer  and  winter,  rain  or  shine),  had 
maintained  its  position  on  the  same  spot  from  the 
earliest  days  of  the  colony.  It  was  the  church  of 
Francis  Higginson  and  Roger  Williams  and  Hugh 
Peters,  all  of  whom  had  been  driven  from  England  in 
the  days  of  the  tyranny  of  Archbishop  Laud,  as  non- 
conformists. It  was  within  the  walls  of  this  church 
that  Anne  Hutchinson  and  the  Quakers  had  made 
their  unseemly  demonstration,  for  which  they  had 
been  expelled  from  the  colony,  but  non-conformity 
seemed  to  be  deeply  rooted  in  the  soil  of  the  church, 
and  in  my  boyhood  it  was  one  of  the  most  pronounced 
Unitarian  churches  in  the  whole  commonwealth. 

All  these  historical  reminiscences  and  traditions 
hung  over  the  place  and  made  a  deep  impression  upon 
the  minds  of  sensitive  and  impressionable  children 
who  were  brought  up  there  even  down  to  my  time, 
and  these  impressions  were  greatly  confirmed  by  the 
wonderful  writings  of  Hawthorne  in  all  his  books  re- 
lating to  colonial  history.  We  loved  to  wander  at 
large  within  the  narrow  limits  of  the  old  town,  en- 
deavoring to  locate  the  places  where  its  notable  celeb- 
rities in  former  generations  had  acted  their  parts. 


[47] 

At  the  time  of  my  birth  Salem  was  an  extremely 
isolated  place,  practically  shut  in  from  the  rest  of  the 
world.  There  was  daily  stage  communication  from 
Boston,  which  ran  on  to  the  eastward  through  the 
town,  and  the  life  there  was  extremely  simple.  The 
commerce  of  the  place  had  practically  dried  up,  and 
there  was  only  the  local  trade  for  the  supply  of  the 
necessities  of  the  inhabitants  and  of  those  who  came 
in  from  the  neighboring  country  to  do  their  shop- 
ping. The  population  was  homogeneous,  pure  English 
throughout.  The  great  tide  of  Irish  immigration  had 
hardly  begun,  although  a  few  straggling  Irish  girls 
could  be  found  in  the  kitchens,  but  I  can  only  recall 
two  foreigners  among  the  better  class  of  the  people, 
one  an  Italian  music-master,  and  another  a  French 
refugee,  both  gentlemen  of  excellent  quality. 

Neither  steam  nor  electricity  had  yet  been  intro- 
duced in  any  form,  but  they  were  soon  to  come,  for 
one  of  my  very  earliest  recollections  was  in  1837,  when 
I  was  five  years  old,  being  taken  by  my  father  to  the 
top  of  Castle  Hill,  which  lay  to  the  south  of  the  town, 
to  see  the  first  railroad-train  come  in  from  Boston. 
Compared  with  any  railroad-train  now  known  it  was 
a  very  petty  and  puny  affair,  a  little  engine  with  two 
small-sized  passenger-cars  and  what  was  called  a 
"nigger  car"  attached  for  colored  people  to  ride  in. 
Samples  of  such  primitive  trains  are  always  shown 
now  as  exhibits  from  the  earliest  railroads  as  examples 
of  the  beginning  of  the  transportation  system  of  the 
United  States. 


That  was  truly  the  beginning  of  the  life  of  the  place 
which  had  been  slumbering  for  years  since  its  sea- 
board and  seaborne  life  had  died  away.  I  was  liter- 
ally born  into  a  wholly  different  life  from  any  that 
we  know  anything  about  to-day.  The  town  was  dead 
before  this  first  railroad-train  arrived,  and  from  that 
moment  it  really  began  to  wake  up.  In  fact,  for  a 
time,  the  coming  of  the  train  from  Boston  was  the  sig- 
nal for  a  great  assemblage  of  the  younger  people  at 
the  station  to  see  the  train  come  in.  There  were  no 
time-tables,  and  the  coming  and  departure  of  trains 
was  announced  by  an  old  Revolutionary  soldier,  a 
veteran  corporal,  who  became  well  known  to  all  the 
boys  in  town,  Corporal  Pitman,  and  the  local  rhyme 
ran: 

"Who  rings  the  eastern  railroad  bell, 

And  makes  its  notes  with  power  tell, 

And  who  can  do  it  half  so  well 
As  Corporal?" 

Two  years  afterwards  the  eastern  railroad  was  ex- 
tended to  Beverly,  two  miles  beyond,  and  to  accom- 
plish this,  what  appeared  to  our  childish  imaginations 
to  be  an  enormous  tunnel  was  dug  through  the  centre 
of  the  town  from  river  to  river,  at  least  fifty  feet  deep 
and  still  more  broad,  which  cut  the  town  in  halves, 
and  when  it  was  finished  and  the  trains  ran  through 
to  Beverly  and  beyond,  Salem  had  awakened  from 
its  lethargy  and  was  really  in  touch  with  the  rest  of 
the  world. 

We  were  very  proud  of  our  local  celebrities,  es- 


[49] 

pecially  if  they  had  attained  to  great  national  and 
public  reputation,  and  one  of  my  earliest  reminis- 
cences is  being  sent  home  from  church  one  hot  Sun- 
day afternoon,  at  the  close  of  the  service,  to  make 
room  for  a  grown  person  to  attend  the  eulogy  to  be 
pronounced  upon  Doctor  Bowditch,  the  great  mathe- 
matician and  navigator.  I  could  not  have  made  room 
for  a  very  large  person,  because  I  was  then  only  six 
years  old,  but  every  inch  of  space  in  the  First  Church 
was  required  for  so  celebrated  an  occasion. 

Life  in  those  days  was  a  steady  round  of  work,  even 
for  the  young  people,  with  very  little  play  and  still 
less  decoration.  The  clothes  of  all  classes  and  both 
sexes  were  very  plain,  and  the  cuisine  and  the  food 
were  very  simple.  It  is  true  that  there  were  some 
very  rich  people  in  the  town,  who  had  inherited  and 
divided  the  wealth  of  the  great  merchants  of  the 
previous  age,  but  the  rest  of  the  people  who  were  en- 
gaged in  earning  their  own  living  and  ours  had  not 
much  to  do  with  them.  They  had  some  pictures  and 
statuary  that,  I  believe,  were  of  no  great  account,  and 
there  was  no  opportunity  for  the  study  of  art  except 
at  the  famous  East  India  Marine  Museum,  which  was 
organized  in  the  early  part  of  the  century  and  com- 
posed of  seafaring  men  who  had  navigated  Cape  Horn 
or  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope  as  master  or  supercargo, 
and  had  brought  home  curiosities  from  distant  parts 
of  the  world,  which  were  the  chief  riches  of  their  mu- 
seum. But  it  did  hold  two  wonderful  casts  that  made 
a  great  impression  on  my  mind,  one  of  the  Laocoon,  and 


[50] 

the  other  of  the  boy  seated  and  picking  a  thorn  out  of 
his  foot,  which  are  still  very  famous  among  the  artistic 
treasures  of  Europe,  and  there  also  were  products  of 
Chinese  and  Indian  art  which  compared  well  with 
more  modern  importations  from  those  distant  regions. 

I  believe  that  Salem  in  the  time  of  my  boyhood 
could  boast  of  a  greater  proportion  of  living  Harvard 
graduates  than  any  other  town  in  the  State,  for  those 
old  merchants  had  had  the  wit  to  send  their  sons  to 
college,  and  every  year  a  liberal  contingent  of  candi- 
dates were  sent  to  Cambridge. 

For  a  place  of  its  size,  too,  Salem  was  well  supplied 
with  local  newspapers,  which  held  a  high  reputation 
in  the  ranks  of  the  American  press,  The  Salem  Regis- 
ter and  The  Salem  Gazette.  The  Gazette  had  had  a  long 
career  and  was  a  dignified  paper  of  somewhat  aristo- 
cratic tone,  while  The  Register  had  started  as  a  Demo- 
cratic paper  and  was  much  patronized  by  Judge 
Storey,  who,  I  believe,  had  something  to  do  with 
editing  it  in  his  early  days,  and  who  wrote  the  verse 
which  it  always  maintained  at  its  head: 

"Here  shall  the  press  the  people's  rights  maintain 
Unawed  by  influence,  and  unbribed  by  gain 
Here  patriot  truth  its  sacred  precepts  draw 
Pledged  to  Religion,  Liberty  and  Law." 

Each  of  these  came  out  twice  a  week,  The  Register 
on  Monday  and  Thursday,  and  The  Gazette  on  Tues- 
day and  Friday,  and  that  was  about  all  the  people 
could  bear,  for  an  attempt  to  convert  The  Gazette  into 


[Si] 

a  triweekly  paper  after  we  began  to  have  daily  papers 
from  Boston  proved  an  entire  failure,  and  was  stig- 
matized by  the  boys  with  a  contemptuous  verse: 
"Triweekly,  but  try  in  vain."  Like  the  local  press 
of  every  suburban  town,  it  had  to  yield  at  last  to  the 
greater  success  and  value  of  the  metropolitan  jour- 
nals. 

Our  sports  consisted  in  the  winter  of  an  occasional 
sleigh-ride,  and  in  the  summer  of  a  few  rude  games  at 
school  during  recess,  and  ranging  over  the  great  pas- 
tures, which  were  a  relict  of  colonial  days  when  rights 
were  acquired  by  the  inhabitants  who  kept  cows, 
which  gave  them  right  to  pasture  them  within  its 
limits.  These  pastures  extended  all  the  way  from 
Salem  to  Lynn,  and  were  great  places  of  resort.  My 
father  also  kept  cows,  never  less  than  two,  which  we 
took  care  of  and  milked  and  drove  to  pasture,  and 
thought  we  enjoyed  it,  and  I  had  special  opportu- 
nities for  driving  about,  as  my  father  often  took  me  in 
his  chaise,  on  his  round  of  professional  visits,  to  hold 
the  horse. 

We  also  had  much  to  do  with  assisting  my  mother 
about  the  household  work,  for  servants  were  very 
few  in  those  days  and  large  families  were  brought  up 
with  the  aid  of  not  more  than  one  or  two  servants 
with  occasional  help  of  chorewomen  called  in  for  the 
purpose,  but  we  did  have  a  good,  sound,  wholesome 
training  and  education  in  schools  of  a  high  character 
which  then  sprang  up  all  over  the  State  under  the  in- 
spiration of  Horace  Mann,  and  the  brutality  that  had 


[52] 

been  maintained  steadily  in  the  first  grammar-school 
that  I  attended,  with  its  squalid  accompaniments, 
was  speedily  put  an  end  to.  Flogging  which  had 
there  prevailed  to  an  unlimited  extent  was  practi- 
cally abolished,  although  the  right  to  punish  in  that 
way  was  still  reserved  for  serious  cases. 

I  have  said  that  our  education  was  all  without  cost 
to  my  father  until  we  entered  Harvard,  but  I  do  not 
mean  training  in  the  accomplishments  of  life,  for 
I  was  sent  to  three  institutions  of  that  kind,  the 
dancing-school  under  the  famous  Papanti,  the  sing- 
ing-school under  Jacob  Hood,  and  a  drawing-school 
under  Robert  Conner,  who  was,  I  believe,  an  imported 
Irishman  and  a  very  good  teacher;  but  the  results  in 
these  three  establishments  were  not  very  flattering 
to  my  pride,  for  I  remember  on  one  occasion,  after  a 
serious  trip-up,  being  sent  home  by  Papanti  with  a 
message  to  my  parents  that  I  was  a  disgrace  to  my 
family,  and  after  I  had  cultivated  the  art  of  drawing, 
as  I  supposed  with  success,  for  about  two  years,  Mr. 
Conner  took  my  father  aside  and  whispered  to  him 
confidentially  that  he  need  not  send  me  any  more  to 
the  school,  because  he  really  could  not  teach  me  any 
more,  and  in  singing-school  I  never  reached  the  dig- 
nity of  singing  alone,  but  only  in  very  bad  school 
choruses. 

As  my  youthful  years  progressed  there  was  one 
form  of  entertainment  that  I  found  most  useful  and 
instructive.  I  mean  the  lyceum  lectures  that  at  that 
time  prevailed  generally  throughout  New  England  in 


[53] 

the  larger  towns  and  cities  in  the  winter  season.  We 
regarded  it  as  a  great  thing  to  have  the  most  distin- 
guished men  of  letters  in  the  country  come  and  de- 
liver discourses  on  interesting  subjects,  and  I  believe 
that  I  was  always  a  faithful  attendant  in  all  the  later 
years  of  my  school  days  on  these  courses.  When  such 
men  as  Doctor  Holmes  and  Mr.  Emerson,  James  Rus- 
sell Lowell,  and  their  distinguished  colleagues  in 
Boston  came,  we  hung  upon  their  lips  with  the  most 
devout  attention.  I  believe  that  this  form  of  enter- 
tainment afterwards  declined,  owing,  I  suppose,  to 
the  universal  introduction  of  magazines  and  weeklies 
which  brought  home  to  every  house  instruction  in 
similar  subjects  as  those  to  which  we  had  been  so  long 
used  in  the  lectures  of  the  lyceum. 

There  was  also  another  form  of  entertainment 
which,  as  the  years  advanced,  I  found  especially  fas- 
cinating and  which,  perhaps,  had  some  influence  in 
shaping  my  subsequent  career,  and  that  was  atten- 
dance upon  the  sessions  of  the  higher  courts  of  record, 
the  business  of  which,  so  far  as  it  pertained  to  any- 
thing like  local  importance  in  Essex  County,  had  not 
yet  been  absorbed,  as  it  now  is,  by  the  greater  city  of 
Boston.  The  sessions  of  the  Supreme  Court,  pre- 
sided over  by  Chief  Justice  Shaw  and  his  associates, 
were  always  a  great  attraction,  especially  in  the  jury 
trials,  where  the  jurors  were  selected,  two  panels  for 
each  term,  and  composed  of  citizens  of  high  char- 
acter, and  these  drew  for  their  professional  labors  men 
of  distinction  from  other  counties  besides  Essex. 


[54] 

I  remember  well  seeing  and  hearing  Samuel  Hoar, 
of  Concord,  Rufus  Choate,  of  Boston,  Benjamin  F. 
Butler  and  Thomas  Hopkinson.  of  Lowell,  Otis  P. 
Lord,  who  was  afterwards  a  valuable  judge  of  the 
Supreme  Court,  and  many  other  distinguished  men, 
and  it  was  a  special  treat  to  me  to  hear  their  dis- 
cussions and  contests  with  each  other  and  with  the 
members  of  the  Salem  bar,  which  was  then  still  of 
great  importance,  and  in  the  absence  of  theatres, 
which  were  up  to  that  time  unknown  in  Salem,  these 
sessions  of  the  court  afforded  quite  as  much  tragedy 
and  comedy  as  any  ordinary  theatre  would  have 
done. 

The  preparation  for  college  was  of  the  best  quality 
then  known,  and  I  think  quite  as  good  as  any  that 
has  succeeded  it  up  to  the  present  time.  After  a  full 
course  in  the  common  schools  and  three  years  in  the 
high  school,  covering  the  ordinary  branches  of  Eng- 
lish school  education,  we  had  a  special  school  where 
nothing  was  taught  but  Greek,  Latin,  and  mathe- 
matics, and  all  by  a  single  teacher  who  was  a  special 
expert  in  the  preparation  of  boys  for  college,  although 
his  original  training  in  English  must  have  been  some- 
what imperfect,  as  it  had  not  rescued  him  from  the 
frequent  use  of  the  double  negative,  and  the  boys  in 
the  school  amused  themselves  by  getting  up  an  exag- 
gerated example  of  this  as  illustrative  of  his  mode  of 
addressing  blockheads  that  came  under  his  hands, 
something  like  this: 

"  You  don't  know  nothing,  and  you  never  did  know 


GAMALIEL  HODGES— 1766-1850. 

Grandfather    of   J.    H.   C.    From   a   pastel   portrait   painted    in  Antwerp,   when 

"Captain"  Hodges,  as  a  young  sea  captain,  roamed  the  sea.  He  lived  to  be 

over  eighty-four  years  old,  and  only  survived  his  wife  two  months.     Their 
married  life  lacked  but  six  days  of  lasting  sixty-two  yean. 


I  remember 

Lore 
and  . 


of  the 
.d  men, 

;  to  hear  their  dis- 

other  and  with  the 

hen,  stili  of 

!res, 


fieque 
the  sc 


add 
"Youd 


doubl* 


[  where 
he- 


JMIJAI.- 

KJ  bati 


ojlasl-s,     • 


did  i 


[55] 

nothing,  and  it  don't  seem  as  if  I  could  not  never 
teach  you  nothing  nohow  apparently." 

But  he  was  a  splendid  teacher,  nevertheless,  and 
got  us  all  into  college  with  flying  colors.  I  believe 
that  this  school  has  been  absorbed  now  and  made  a 
part  of  the  high  school,  which,  in  my  judgment,  was 
a  sad  departure  from  the  very  best  method  as  it  then 
prevailed  in  Salem,  in  Boston,  and  in  Roxbury,  the 
Latin  schools  of  which  sent  the  best-prepared  stu- 
dents to  enter  at  Harvard. 

This  school  was  claimed  to  be  the  first  public  school 
in  the  colony  of  Massachusetts,  although  I  think  that 
the  claim  of  the  Boston  Latin  school  to  have  preceded 
it  in  its  origin  may  have  some  foundation,  but  as 
Salem  was  founded  some  ten  years  before  Boston,  I 
have  always  been  inclined  to  believe  that  this  school 
was  the  first  in  the  colony,  and  that  in  some  way  or 
other  it  had  been  continued  uninterruptedly  down  to 
my  time. 

At  any  rate  there  was  inscribed  upon  the  wall  of 
the  schoolroom  the  words  "Schola  publica  prima," 
and  the  name  of  George  Downing  as  its  first  pupil. 
Of  this  antiquity  we  members  of  the  school  were  not 
a  little  proud,  as  it  seemed  to  give  a  sort  of  historical 
renown  and  certainly  an  interesting  tradition  to  the 
school. 

This  George  Downing  afterwards  became  a  mem- 
ber of  the  first  class  that  graduated  at  Harvard  Col- 
lege in  1642,  where  his  name  is  entered  "George 
Downing,  Knight  1660,  Baronet  1663,  Tutor,  Am- 


[56] 

bassador  to  Netherlands  from  Cromwell  and  Charles 
Second,  M.  P.,"  and  as  the  names  of  the  members  of 
the  class  were  then  entered  according  to  social  dis- 
tinction of  their  family  his  name  appears  second,  as 
he  was  a  nephew  of  John  Winthrop,  the  founder  of  the 
Commonwealth  of  Massachusetts.  We  always  en- 
joyed the  idea  of  having  been  schoolmates  of  this 
celebrity,  although  two  hundred  years  apart. 

I  remember  referring  to  this  at  a  lord  mayor's  din- 
ner in  London,  in  1902  I  think  it  was,  when  I  was 
called  upon  to  speak  for  the  diplomatic  corps,  and  I 
gave  them  the  history  of  George  Downing  as  I  had 
studied  it  out  for  the  occasion;  how  he  had  been 
secretary  of  the  treasury  in  England  in  1667,  and  had 
represented  England  at  the  Netherlands  as  ambas- 
sador from  Charles  the  First,  from  Cromwell,  and 
from  Charles  the  Second;  what  a  wonderful  turncoat 
he  had  been  to  be  permitted  to  represent  the  Pro- 
tector as  well  as  the  two  Stuart  Kings  who  preceded 
and  followed  him;  how  by  the  favor  of  Charles  the 
Second  he  had  acquired  a  vast  tract  of  land  in  Lon- 
don, in  close  proximity  to  what  is  now  the  very  seat 
of  government,  all  of  which  had  disappeared  except 
the  little  cul-de-sac  called  Downing  Street,  which 
leads  in  to  the  Foreign  Office,  so  that  his  name  is 
stamped  indelibly  upon  the  very  seat  and  centre  of 
the  British  Empire,  as  I  had  hoped  that  it  would  be 
upon  the  school  which  he  and  I  attended. 

When  I  sat  down,  Lord  Salisbury,  who  was  then 
prime  minister  and  had  made  the  great  speech  of  the 


[57] 

evening,  turned  to  me  and  said:  "Where  did  you  find 
out  all  that  ?  I  never  heard  anything  about  it."  And 
I  replied:  "Why,  I  made  a  special  study  of  it,  as  I 
felt  I  ought  to  know  the  history  of  the  spot  on  which 
all  my  official  business  in  England  was  conducted." 

Before  I  bid  farewell  to  Salem  I  ought  to  say  that 
Salem  as  I  knew  it  when  I  left  to  go  to  Harvard,  in 
1848,  still  remains  practically  unmarred  and  undis- 
turbed by  the  late  terrible  conflagration  there.  All 
the  streets,  highways,  and  byways  that  I  knew  as  a 
boy  still  remain  as  they  were,  and  only  a  great  ex- 
terior range  of  buildings,  stores,  and  residences  which 
had  been  built  up  since  that  day  were  destroyed  in 
the  fire,  which  called  the  attention  of  the  whole  world 
in  1912  to  that  ancient  town. 

There  must  have  been  something  in  the  air  of 
Salem  or  in  the  tone  of  the  school  which  gave  special 
vitality  to  the  boys  who  were  educated  there,  for  of 
my  class  at  Harvard,  which  consisted  of  eighty-eight 
members,  gathered  from  all  parts  of  the  country, 
there  are  at  the  time  of  the  present  writing  five  sur- 
vivors, four  of  whom  entered  with  me  at  the  Salem 
Latin  School,  and  from  there  we  proceeded  together 
to  the  college. 

I  think  that  like  the  other  towns  on  the  eastern 
shore  of  Massachusetts,  which  were  all  of  purely  Eng- 
lish origin,  Salem  must  have  retained  by  tradition 
many  usages  of  transatlantic  origin  or  derived  from 
the  customs  of  the  first  settlers.  For  instance,  the 
curfew  bell  which,  I  believe,  still  rings  regularly  as  it 


[58] 

has  for  the  last  two  hundred  and  seventy-five  years 
was  certainly  an  importation  from  the  old  country, 
and  the  town  crier  must  have  been  of  similar  origin. 
He  was  employed  to  give  notices  of  sales,  losses  of 
children,  losses  of  dogs,  and  other  important  local 
events.  He  carried  a  hand-bell  and  would  stop  at 
each  corner  as  he  passed  down  Essex  Street  and  ring 
the  bell  with  all  his  might,  and  we  gathered  about  him 
with  great  interest  to  hear  the  news,  whatever  it 
might  be,  as  with  a  stentorian  voice  that  could  be 
heard  the  length  of  a  block  he  would  utter  his  im- 
portant intelligence,  while  we  all  listened  with  mouths 
and  ears  wide  open.  And  then  there  was  the  local 
vendor,  a  quaint  old  Frenchman,  old  Monarque, 
whose  name  must  be  added  to  our  foreigners  of  dis- 
tinction, for  he  dealt  in  a  very  limited  number  of  ar- 
ticles as  he  drove  his  push-cart  all  about  the  town, 
shouting  in  broken  English:  "Pickledy  limes,  and 
tamadirinds,  two  for  a  cent  a  piece."  This,  too,  must 
have  been  an  old  English  mode  of  advertising  before 
the  days  of  newspapers. 

In  the  First  Church,  of  which  my  father  was  a  pillar, 
which  had  become  under  the  influence  of  Channing  a 
very  strong  Unitarian  body,  when  they  came  to  in- 
stall a  new  clergyman  in  1848,  instead  of  having  a 
clerical  array  of  participants  to  administer  the  laying 
on  of  hands,  the  service  was  performed  by  Doctor 
Choate,  who  delivered  an  address  on  the  occasion, 
and  it  was  said  that  the  proceedings  were  exactly  like 
those  which  had  taken  place  two  hundred  and  nine- 


[59] 

teen  years  before  when  the  church  was  first  es- 
tablished. 

Wednesday  afternoon,  like  Saturday  afternoon, 
was  always  a  general  holiday  for  the  schools,  because 
in  the  early  colony  days  there  was  a  religious  lecture 
delivered  every  Wednesday,  and  from  that  time  down 
the  Wednesday  holiday  was  called  lecture  afternoon. 

So,  also,  for  hundreds  of  years  all  work  on  Sunday 
was  prohibited,  even  the  necessary  cooking  for  the 
family.  There  were  public  bakehouses  to  which  pri- 
vate families  on  Saturday  afternoon  sent  their  pots 
of  pork  and  beans,  of  Indian  pudding,  and  brown 
bread,  which  were  ready  for  them  hot  on  Sunday 
morning  and  delivered  to  those  who  had  sent  them, 
and  you  would  see  a  long  string  of  callers  every  Sun- 
day morning  at  the  entrance  of  each  of  the  bake- 
houses. Sunday  began  at  sundown  on  Saturday,  and 
nothing  but  good  books  were  allowed  to  be  read  by 
the  children  until  the  sun  had  set  on  Sunday  after- 
noon. 

We  had  one  great  political  excitement,  the  first  in 
which  I  took  an  interest  at  the  premature  age  of 
eight,  having  been  born  in  the  administration  of  An- 
drew Jackson,  in  his  second  term,  and  survived  that  of 
Martin  Van  Buren,  which  embraced  the  almost  fatal 
panic  of  1837.  The  nomination  of  "Tippecanoe  and 
Tyler  too,"  William  Henry  Harrison  and  John  Tyler 
for  President  and  Vice-President,  excited  the  en- 
thusiasm of  all  of  us  boys,  which  was  brought  to  a 
white  heat  when  a  huge  log  cabin  was  erected,  with  a 


[6o] 

hard-cider  barrel  in  the  rear  and  a  live  coon  at  the 
front  door,  where  the  constant  meetings  of  this  cam- 
paign were  held.  I  think  nearly  all  the  people  of 
Salem  who  had  suffered  from  the  hard  times  were  for 
the  Whig  ticket  and  were  strongly  tempted  by  the 
cry  of  "Two  dollars  a  day  and  roast  beef,"  which  was 
the  catchword  of  that  campaign.  All  the  distin- 
guished orators  of  the  country  came  to  speak,  among 
whom  I  remember  notably  Tom  Corwin,  of  Ohio, 
who,  after  a  life  of  great  distinction,  afterwards  voted 
against  supplies  for  the  army  during  the  Mexican 
War  and  came  to  an  end  of  his  political  career.  In 
the  election  of  our  candidates  there  was  great  uni- 
versal exultation  until,  a  month  after  his  inaugura- 
tion, President  Harrison  died,  and  John  Tyler  turned 
traitor  to  his  party  and  led  the  democracy.  I  well  re- 
member attending  the  funeral  ceremonies  of  Presi- 
dent Harrison  and  listening  to  a  eulogy  of  the  de- 
ceased President  on  Salem  common  with  a  crape  band 
on  my  arm  nearly  a  foot  wide,  and  while  I  was  listen- 
ing this  band  was  snatched  away  by  some  under- 
serving  Democrat,  and  I  went  home  in  tears,  whether 
more  for  the  President  or  the  lost  band  I  cannot  at 
this  distance  of  time  state. 

I  have  said  that  we  were  not  much  given  to  sport, 
or  not  at  all,  but  I  must  make  one  exception.  We 
played  cards  a  great  deal.  Father  had  a  theory  that 
if  he  taught  us  all  the  games  of  cards  that  he  knew  or 
could  learn  himself,  there  was  no  danger  of  any  of  the 
children  taking  to  gambling  when  they  grew  up,  and 


so  it  proved.  There  was  not  a  well-known  game  of 
cards  that  we  were  not  taught,  and  the  result  was  just 
as  he  had  calculated.  This,  I  think,  would  be  a  very 
wise  example  to  follow  in  every  family,  especially  in 
these  days  of  auction  bridge,  which  is,  I  believe,  do- 
ing much  mischief  in  many  a  community.  It  oper- 
ated just  as  well  as  his  theory  about  work  did,  that 
if  he  established  a  habit  of  regular  work  among  the 
children  they  would  become  lovers  of  work  for  its  own 
sake  when  they  grew  up,  and  so  again  it  proved. 
Nothing  could  be  more  simple,  wholesome,  and 
healthy  than  our  bringing  up  was,  and  we  all  had 
abundant  reason  to  be  grateful  for  it  in  our  subse- 
quent life. 

Our  family  at  Salem  consisted  not  only  of  the  four 
brothers,  of  whom  I  have  already  said  so  much,  but 
we  had  two  sisters,  Elizabeth  and  Caroline,  one  older 
and  one  younger  than  myself,  who,  like  their  mother, 
proved  to  be  women  of  sterling  character  and  of  the 
highest  ideals.  Elizabeth  was  born  in  September, 
1829,  nearly  two  years  and  a  half  before  me.  They 
were  both  very  important  members  of  our  family. 
Beyond  the  public  schools  at  that  time  there  was  no 
provision  for  the  higher  education  of  women.  Col- 
leges for  women  had  not  yet  been  thought  of,  and  the 
only  recourse  was  to  select  private  schools  for  girls, 
with  which  Salem  for  two  or  three  generations  had 
been  richly  provided.  In  my  mother's  time  there  was 
a  very  celebrated  teacher  of  very  high  grade  named 
Thomas  Cole,  to  whom  the  daughters  of  all  the  lead- 


[62] 

ing  families  of  Salem  were  sent  and  reared  with  great 
success.  He  turned  them  out  well-educated  and  ac- 
complished women,  and  was  very  much  assisted,  as  I 
believe,  by  Professor  Louvrier,  who  at  the  same  time 
trained  them  in  foreign  languages,  and  they  were  fol- 
lowed in  subsequent  years  by  a  very  famous  school, 
kept  by  Miss  Ward,  to  whom  my  sisters,  with  other 
choice  girls  of  that  period,  were  intrusted  with  the 
same  success. 

Elizabeth  was  a  girl  of  really  fine  genius,  to  whom 
the  acquisition  of  knowledge  came  easily  by  nature. 
She  also  came  to  be  a  very  excellent  musician,  and 
was  a  very  bright  feature  of  the  family,  warm-hearted 
and  most  devoted  to  the  rest  of  us.  When  she  came 
of  age,  in  1850,  there  was  every  prospect  of  a  brilliant 
career  for  her,  and  she  aspired  to  follow  the  example 
of  Miss  Ward,  whose  reputation  was  exceedingly  high, 
and  become  herself  a  teacher.  For  a  short  time  she 
did  assist  General  Henry  K.  Oliver,  with  whom  she 
had  been  a  pupil,  in  his  classes,  but,  unfortunately,  to 
the  great  distress  of  the  family,  she  within  a  very  few 
years  showed  symptoms  of  that  insidious  disease, 
tuberculosis,  of  which  at  that  time  the  medical  fac- 
ulty had  very  little  control,  and  it  seemed  to  be  taken 
for  granted  that  the  disease  must  take  its  course  and 
that  a  fatal  result,  sooner  or  later,  was  inevitable. 
Every  effort  was  made  to  resist  the  progress  of  her 
trouble  by  long  summers  in  the  country  in  the  hope 
that  the  fresh-air  cure  would  benefit  her,  as  it  un- 
doubtedly did  for  a  while,  but  at  the  age  of  thirty  we 


[63] 

met  with  an  infinite  loss  in  her  death,  which  caused 
the  first  break  in  our  family  circle,  and  which  was 
sadly  deplored  by  us  all.  Strange  to  say,  my  mother, 
who  lived  to  be  such  a  noble  pillar  of  health  and 
strength,  lost  her  elder  sister  at  about  the  same  age 
and  from  the  same  hopeless  malady.  In  both  in- 
stances the  surviving  sister  and  all  the  brothers  were 
wholly  free  from  any  manifestations  of  the  infirmity, 
and  were  lifelong  models  of  robust  health. 

My  sister  Caroline,  who  was  nearly  three  years 
younger  than  I  and  was  very  charming  and  hand- 
some, was  educated  in  the  same  way  as  her  elder 
sister,  and  was  much  beloved  and  admired,  not  only 
in  her  own  family  but  by  every  one  who  met  her.  At 
the  age  of  twenty-six  she  married  a  charming  Ger- 
man, Doctor  Ernst  Bruno  de  Gersdorff,  who  had 
settled  in  Salem  as  a  practising  physician  some  ten 
years  before,  and  he  also  had  become  a  very  great 
favorite  among  Salem' s  best  people.  He  was  born 
at  Eisenach  in  the  Duchy  of  Saxe- Weimar  in  the  year 
1825,  and  was  very  highly  educated  and  accomplished 
before  he  came  to  this  country.  His  father  was  for 
many  years  chief  justice  of  the  Duchy  of  Saxe- 
Weimar,  and  moved  in  that  wonderful  circle  of  learn- 
ing and  culture  of  which  Goethe  had  been  recognized 
leader,  and  as  the  young  de  Gersdorff  was  twelve 
years  old  before  the  death  of  Goethe  he  must  have 
been  deeply  affected  and  influenced  by  the  wonderful 
impression  which  that  great  poet  and  philosopher 
made  upon  the  community  in  which  he  lived,  and  to 


which  youthful  minds  were  so  receptive  and  suscep- 
tible. When  the  stirring  times  of  1848  came  on  in 
Europe  and  the  revolutionary  spirit  broke  out  in  Ger- 
many, which  captivated  and  involved  so  many  young 
men,  de  GersdorfFs  elder  brother  was  mixed  up  with 
some  transactions  which  excited  the  attention  and 
censure  of  the  government,  and  he  had  to  leave  Ger- 
many. As  the  suspicion  of  complicity  was  supposed 
to  have  extended  to  the  younger  brother  also,  his 
father  thought  best  that  he  should  come  to  America, 
and  he  accompanied  his  younger  son  to  this  country, 
where  he  settled,  as  I  have  said,  at  Salem.  He  was 
full  of  sentiment,  poetical,  musical,  and  devoted  to 
all  high  accomplishments.  He  was  devoted  to  art, 
and  was  himself  no  mean  artist.  After  a  long  and 
useful  life,  for  a  while  in  Salem  and  afterwards  in 
Boston,  he  died  in  1883.  He  was  of  the  same  type  as 
Carl  Schurz,  Doctor  Jacobi,  and  other  famous  Ger- 
man exiles  for  freedom,  and  had  the  same  German  cul- 
ture of  Goethe's  day,  a  genial  and  estimable  and 
highly  accomplished  gentleman,  and  left  a  delightful 
memory  among  the  people  of  all  classes  without  dis- 
tinction of  medical  schools.  His  father  had  been,  I  be- 
lieve, an  intimate  friend  of  Hahnemann,  the  famous 
founder  of  homoeopathy,  and  he  had  been  brought 
up  as  a  follower  of  that  leader.  He  had  been  educated 
at  Jena  and  Leipsic,  and,  of  course,  was  all  ready  for 
the  practice  of  his  profession  when  he  arrived  in 
America. 

Mrs.  de  Gersdorff  was  a  most  devoted  and  always 


[65] 

anxious  mother,  and  at  the  early  age  of  fifty-five  she 
fell  a  victim  of  her  own  solicitude.  One  of  her  sons 
had  been  operated  upon  at  Saint  Luke's  Hospital,  in 
New  York,  and  she  insisted,  against  the  protest  of  her 
friends,  in  taking  a  room  at  the  hospital  to  watch  his 
recovery,  where  she  took  cold  and  died  in  a  very  few 
days  of  pneumonia.  She  had  a  splendid  constitution 
and  ought,  like  her  mother,  to  have  lived  to  a  very 
ripe  old  age.  She  is  still  remembered  by  many  sur- 
viving friends,  to  whom  she  had  greatly  endeared 
herself.  She  left  two  sons,  who  graduated  at  Harvard 
in  1887  and  1888,  and  who  hold  well-recognized 
positions  in  New  York. 


V 
HARVARD  COLLEGE 

We  were  taught  to  look  forward  to  graduation  at 
Harvard  as  the  only  possible  way  of  entering  upon 
active  life,  and  my  first  visit  to  that  renowned  seat  of 
learning  was  at  the  commencement  in  1846,  when  my 
oldest  brother  graduated,  and  I  drove  up  with  Thomas 
Drew,  a  famous  caterer  in  Salem,  who  carried  a 
wagon-load  of  table  furniture  and  supplies  for  the 
simple  spread  of  that  day.  In  the  church  as  the  ex- 
ercises proceeded  I  saw  a  distinguished-looking  man 
on  the  front  of  the  platform  with  a  shiny,  pointed,  and 
very  bald  head,  and  when  I  asked  who  that  was,  it 
proved  to  be  ex-President  John  Quincy  Adams,  who 
was  the  earliest  President  of  the  United  States  whom 
I  ever  saw,  and  as  he  had  been  the  sixth  President  it 
seemed  to  carry  us  a  very  great  way  back. 

My  brother  William  and  I  were  always  together  at 
school  as  long  as  I  can  remember,  for  some  early  ill- 
ness had  retarded  his  progress  at  the  start,  and  we 
went  up  for  our  examinations  at  last  in  the  summer  of 
1848,  and  now  as  I  am  writing  all  but  five  of  those 
who  had  then  graduated  at  that  ancient  university 
have  passed  away.  The  examinations  for  entrance  at 
that  date  were  not  formidable,  although  they  cov- 

[66] 


DOCTOR  GEORGE  CHOATE— 1796-1880. 
Father  of  J.  H.  C.    This  portrait  was  made  when  he  was  about  sixty-six  year*  old. 


-YARD  (<  JE 

'<>  }<x;k  forward  to  graduation  at 
of  catering  upon 
reutrwmxl  scat  of 
wHcn  my 

<nas 

*.=  (•»]    a 


<r  cx- 

«:  man 
•no 

was,  it 

-  y  Adams,  who 

'  ites  whom 
resident  it 
k 

tys  together  at 
j'or  some  early  ill- 

i-6^-i—  3TAOHO  3OHO3O  flOTXXI  ^ 

.bio  *iB9-{  xia-yJxi!  :  '  nsrf-.v  sbsm  »*w  Jikiiioq  tHfT    .t)  IH  .V"V>t»iu»^i 

T  last  in  the  summer  of 

I^H,  ..  ring  all  but  five  of  those 

r  that  ancient  university 

..  minations  for  entrance  at 

that  ei  oie,  although  they  cov- 


ered,  I  believe,  a  portion  of  two  succeeding  days,  and 
were  partly  oral  and  partly  in  writing.  At  the  close 
of  the  second  day  the  list  was  read  off  of  those  who 
had  successfully  passed  the  examinations  in  the  order 
of  the  marks  they  had  received,  and  I  was  quite  sur- 
prised to  find  my  name  led  all  the  rest,  but  William, 
who  was  a  far  better  scholar,  soon  took  the  lead  and 
held  it  without  any  mishap  for  the  whole  four  years' 
course. 

The  transition  from  the  narrow  and  limited  life  of 
our  boyhood  to  the  broader  and  freer  life  at  Harvard  at 
the  age  of  sixteen  was  quite  a  startling  one.  We  were 
now  comparatively  our  own  masters,  and,  subject  to 
the  rules  and  requirements  of  the  college,  could  do  as 
we  pleased,  and  our  eyes  opened  wide  to  see  what  our 
new  freedom  really  meant.  The  routine  of  our  phys- 
ical lives  was  new  and  most  interesting.  Athletics  as 
yet  were  practically  unknown,  although  there  was,  if 
I  rightly  recollect,  a  small  gymnasium  already  upon 
the  Delta,  where  those  who  wished  could  exercise 
every  day,  but  if  there  was  one  thing  that  I  hated 
then  and  always  afterwards  more  than  another  it  was 
practising  in  the  gymnasium,  and  so  I  had  little  to  do 
with  that.  Boston,  four  miles  away,  was  the  great  at- 
traction, with  all  its  historical  associations  and  places 
to  visit.  I  do  not  recollect  ever  having  been  there 
more  than  twice  or  even  outside  the  bounds  of  Essex 
County  before  I  entered  Harvard,  and  as  there  was 
no  conveyance  to  Boston  but  the  omnibus  we  almost 
always  walked.  Walking  I  have  always  found  to  be 


[68] 

very  nearly  the  best  exercise  for  health  and  recrea- 
tion that  anybody  could  take. 

There  had  been,  I  believe,  a  boat  club  in  existence 
in  previous  years,  but  as  the  members  committed 
some  excesses  after  rowing  into  Boston  to  the  theatre 
the  club  was  suppressed  with  a  strong  hand  by  Presi- 
dent Everett,  and  was  not  renewed  until  Charles  W. 
Eliot,  of  the  class  after  mine,  with  his  splendid  phys- 
ical vigor,  succeeded  in  reviving  it.  Football  was  not 
unknown,  but  it  was  limited  in  our  time  to  a  single 
game  on  the  first  Monday  of  the  year  between  the 
freshmen  and  sophomores,  and  consisted  simply  of 
seeing  which  could  force  the  ball  beyond  the  goal  of 
the  other  side,  without  any  of  the  modern  devices  or 
contrivances  which  have  brought  the  game  to  such 
perfection  under  the  leadership  of  Percy  Haughton  as 
trainer.  There  was  an  attempt,  also,  to  introduce 
the  game  of  cricket,  which  had  had  such  distinction 
always  in  England,  but  this  also  came  to  nothing. 

The  walks  to  Boston  and  a  daily  walk  to  Mount 
Auburn,  with  an  occasional  excursion  farther  afield, 
sufficed  to  keep  us  in  good  condition.  I  took  what  I 
thought  one  very  long  walk  in  these  excursions 
abroad.  One  hot  summer  night,  near  the  close  of  the 
term,  in  early  June,  I  was  walking  with  my  friend 
and  classmate  David  Cheever,  afterwards  the  cele- 
brated surgeon  in  Boston,  and  we  got  out  on  the 
turnpike  to  a  sign  that  said,  "Cambridge  two  miles 
and  a  half;  Concord  twelve  miles  and  a  half,"  and  in 
a  rash  moment  I  said  to  him:  "Cheever,  I  will  stump 


[69] 

you  to  walk  to  Concord/'  "All  right,"  he  said,  and 
as  it  was  my  challenge  I  could  not  very  well  back  out, 
and  we  walked  on.  We  got  up  to  Concord,  having 
lost  our  way  in  going  through  Lexington,  some  time 
after  midnight,  I  could  not  say  exactly  when,  and 
being  slightly  fatigued  we  stopped  at  the  hotel  and 
asked  for  a  glass  of  whiskey  or  brandy,  but  it  was  in 
the  days  of  the  Maine  law,  and  the  landlord  said  that 
it  was  an  absolute  impossibility,  however  we  pressed 
our  claim  and  told  him  that  we  had  got  to  get  back  to 
the  college  for  morning  prayers  at  six  o'clock.  He 
finally  yielded  and  said,  "Come  with  me,"  and  gave 
us  a  delightful  illustration  of  how  the  Maine  law  was 
executed.  He  led  us  through  a  labyrinth  of  cellars, 
up  against  what  appeared  to  be  a  blank  wall,  but  he 
touched  a  spring  and  a  door  opened,  and  inside  was 
found  a  barrel  with  a  board  across  it,  a  pitcher  of 
water,  a  bowl  of  sugar,  and  bottles  of  whiskey  and 
brandy,  and  we  took  a  very  refreshing  drink.  After  a 
tramp  of  somewhat  over  thirty  miles,  as  we  reckoned 
it,  we  got  back  to  morning  prayers  just  as  the  bell 
was  ringing,  and  after  that  we  got  breakfast  and 
slept  for  the  rest  of  the  day. 

I  always  regretted  that  the  Harvard  Washington 
Corps,  which  had  been  in  existence  in  my  father's 
time  in  college  and  had  given  its  members  a  good  deal 
of  military  training,  had  long  before  been  abandoned. 
How  much  better  it  would  have  been  for  us  all  if  it 
had  maintained  its  healthful  and  inspiring  existence 
until  now ! 


Our  first  year  was  the  last  year  of  the  college  com- 
mons, which  down  to  that  time  had  been  maintain- 
ing a  somewhat  precarious  existence,  and  at  the  end 
of  our  freshman  year  was  abandoned  forever.  It 
was  quite  exciting,  however,  for  us  to  find  ourselves 
for  the  first  time  taking  all  our  meals  with  a  large 
number  of  our  fellow  collegians,  although  the  fare  was 
very  moderate.  The  tables  were  spread  in  the  base- 
ment of  University  Hall,  the  building  in  which  at 
that  time  almost  all  the  college  exercises  of  every  kind 
were  conducted,  for  it  held  not  only  the  dining-rooms 
but  the  chapel,  and  nearly  all  the  recitation  and  lec- 
ture rooms.  The  commons  were  divided  into  two 
branches,  one  at  what  now  seems  the  moderate  price 
of  two  dollars  and  fifty  cents  a  week,  and  the  other, 
where  we  had  meat  one  day  and  pudding  the  next, 
and  which  was,  therefore,  commonly  called  "Star- 
vation Hollow,"  at  two  dollars  a  week,  but  my 
brother  William  and  Tand  several  of  our  classmates 
from  Salem  of  equally  moderate  financial  ability  ate 
in  "Starvation  Hollow,"  and  found  it  quite  whole- 
some and  sufficient. 

The  necessary  expenses  in  our  first  year  were  mod- 
erate enough  to  startle  any  modern  members  of  the 
university  as  compared  with  the  present  schedule. 
The  tuition  was  seventy-five  dollars  a  year,  and  all 
it  cost  William  and  myself,  who  always  roomed  to- 
gether, for  room  rent  during  our  whole  four  years  at 
Harvard  was  ninety  dollars,  which  happened  in  this 
way.  The  first  year  we  roomed  in  Holworthy,  and 


our  apartment  seemed  to  us  to  be  royal,  for  there  was 
a  parlor,  very  simply  but  comfortably  furnished,  of 
course  at  our  expense,  and  two  bedrooms,  and  the 
only  service  we  had  or  thought  of  was  that  of  the 
"goody,"  so-called,  who  came  every  day  to  make  the 
beds  and  clear  up  the  rooms.  The  freshman  year 
we  were  what  was  called  "Tutor's  Freshmen,"  that 
is  to  say,  Francis  J.  Child,  that  famous  scholar,  who 
had  just  returned  from  abroad  and  had  been  made 
tutor  in  English,  was  the  parietal  officer  in  the  middle 
entry  of  Holworthy,  and  had  the  best  room  on  the 
second  floor,  and  we  were  his  freshmen  and  subject 
to  his  call  at  any  time,  but  the  only  call  that  I  can 
remember  during  that  year  that  he  made  upon  us 
was  a  single  summons  to  a  student  to  whom  he  wished 
to  administer  admonition,  and  for  this  service  we  had 
our  rooms  free. 

The  next  year  we  roomed  in  Hollis,  where  we  had 
a  single  room  together,  of  reasonably  large  dimen- 
sions. The  third  year  in  Stoughton,  where  we  were 
similarly  accommodated,  and  the  fourth  year  as 
seniors  again  we  got  into  the  third  story  of  Hoi- 
worthy  in  the  east  entry,  and  paid  for  each  of  these 
years  the  same  rent  of  thirty  dollars,  fifteen  dollars 
apiece,  rooms  that  I  think  now  rent  for  many  times 
that  amount.  But  the  college  then  was  not  so  much 
in  need  of  money,  and  treated  the  rooms  in  the  vari- 
ous dormitories,  as  they  had  been  intended  to  be 
treated  by  their  munificent  donors  fifty  or  one  hun- 
dred years  before,  as  the  practically  free  homes  of 


[72] 

the  students  whom  they  housed.  To  maintain  a  fair 
equity  the  dean  or  steward,  who  had  the  distribu- 
tion of  the  rooms  from  year  to  year,  assigned  those 
who  had  the  poor  rooms,  as  we  had  had  in  the  junior 
and  sophomore  years,  to  the  better  rooms  in  the 
senior  year,  thus  bringing  us  back  to  Holworthy. 

Our  dress  did  not  differ  substantially  from  what 
we  had  been  accustomed  to,  except  that  by  the  col- 
lege statute,  which  had  been  in  existence  probably 
from  the  beginning,  each  student  was  required  to 
have  for  Sundays  and  exhibitions  "  a  black  coat  with 
buttons  of  the  same." 

Our  first  president,  who  signed  our  admittatur  after 
six  months  probation,  as  the  rule  then  was,  was  no 
less  a  person  that  the  very  distinguished  orator  and 
statesman  Edward  Everett,  who  as  a  scholar  also 
had  had  a  very  remarkable  career.  I  do  not  agree 
with  those  who  seek  from  time  to  time  to  belittle  this 
great  and  distinguished  man.  He  had  entered  Har- 
vard, I  believe,  at  the  age  of  thirteen,  graduated  at 
seventeen  at  the  head  of  his  class,  had  been  pastor 
of  the  Brattle  Street  church  at  Boston  at  the  age  of 
nineteen,  had  followed  that  up  with  deep  study 
abroad  for  several  years,  and  then  became  in  turn 
tutor  and  professor  at  the  college,  and  had  been  a 
member  of  Congress,  senator,  secretary  of  state  of 
the  United  States,  United  States  minister  to  Great 
Britain,  and  governor  of  Massachusetts,  and  was  one 
of  the  best-informed  scholars  of  his  time  and  the 
great  orator  of  the  day.  Somehow  or  other,  with  all 


[73] 

that,  he  was  not  well  suited  to  be  president  of  the 
university,  and  only  held  the  office  for  three  years, 
retiring  on  the  ist  of  February,  1849,  when  he  was 
succeeded  by  the  Reverend  Jared  Sparks,  author  of 
the  "Life  of  Washington,"  who  held  the  office  for 
four  years.  In  the  latter  part  of  his  time  he  became 
disabled,  and  the  office  was  rilled  by  that  great  man, 
the  Reverend  Doctor  James  Walker,  so  that  our  col- 
lege papers  were  signed  by  three  successive  presi- 
dents. 

I  always  regarded  Jared  Sparks  as  the  model  presi- 
dent of  the  college  of  that  day,  and  his  three  years 
were  truly  a  halcyon  period  for  the  students.  He 
took  no  trouble  about  them  himself,  and  did  not 
allow  anybody  else  to  trouble  them,  and  when  com- 
plaint was  made  of  misconduct  his  usual  mode  of 
treating  it  was  to  say:  "Oh,  let  the  boys  alone. 
They'll  take  perfectly  good  care  of  themselves." 
And  so  it  proved;  but  I  suppose  that  according  to 
the  standard  of  an  Eliot  or  a  Lowell,  especially  in 
later  years,  the  brief  terms  of  Everett  and  Sparks 
would  be  regarded  as  singularly  inefficient. 

Mr.  Everett  was  noted  for  his  extreme  formality 
and  the  great  dignity  which  he  maintained,  far  out 
of  the  reach  of  the  students.  I  had  hardly  been  at 
college  a  week  when  I  was  greatly  alarmed  at  re- 
ceiving a  summons  to  come  to  the  office  of  the  presi- 
dent's secretary.  I  went  at  the  time  appointed  with 
fear  and  trembling,  fear  that  I  had  committed  some 
unpardonable  offense,  and  trembling  lest  I  should  be 


[74] 

dismissed,  and  this  conversation  took  place:  "Mr. 
Choate,  the  president  observed  with  great  regret  that 
you  passed  him  in  Harvard  Square  yesterday  with- 
out touching  your  hat.  He  hopes  that  this  offense 
will  never  again  be  repeated."  It  never  was,  but 
no  punishment  was  inflicted,  because  down  at  Salem 
hat-touching  was  not  very  common  and  the  formali- 
ties of  life  were  not  very  strictly  observed;  but  it  is 
an  illustration  of  his  relation  to  the  students,  very 
different  from  that  of  Jared  Sparks,  who  was  always 
very  glad  to  see  us  and  never  put  himself  out  of 
the  way  to  trouble  us,  or  that  of  President  Eliot  in 
later  years,  who  stalked  through  the  College  Yard 
without  taking  notice  of  anybody,  and  apparently 
hoping  that  nobody  would  take  notice  of  him,  and 
really  a  stranger  to  most  of  the  students. 

There  were  several  great  public  events  that  hap- 
pened while  I  was  in  college :  the  arrival  of  Professor 
Louis  Agassiz,  the  renowned  naturalist,  and  his  em- 
ployment as  professor  and  lecturer  in  the  college; 
the  introduction  of  Cochituate  water  into  Boston; 
the  arrival  of  Louis  Kossuth,  and  the  election  of 
Taylor  and  Fillmore  as  President  and  Vice-President 
of  the  United  States.  At  any  rate  they  were  re- 
garded by  us  students  as  very  great  events,  because 
we  had  never  been  witnesses  of  anything  so  important 
before. 

I  have  always  believed  that  the  accession  of  every 
man  of  great  genius  to  the  teaching  force  of  the  uni- 
versity is  the  most  important  thing  that  can  happen 


[75] 

to  it,  and  that  by  the  prestige  of  his  great  name  and 
reputation  he  does  more  for  the  college  than  almost 
anything  else  can  do.  Exchange  professors  had  not 
been  thought  of  at  that  time,  and  to  get  the  man 
who  was  certainly  one  of  the  most  noted  naturalists 
in  the  world  into  our  academic  body  was  of  truly 
unique  importance.  We  listened  to  Agassiz's  lec- 
tures with  the  profoundest  attention,  and  he  did 
much  to  expand  our  minds  and  thoughts. 

How  the  people  of  Boston  with  its  then  rapid 
growth  ever  got  along  without  pure  water  it  is  not 
easy  to  conceive,  and  it  is  no  wonder  that  all  the 
civic  bodies  in  and  around  Boston  took  part  in  the 
celebration.  I  remember  that  the  whole  student 
body  joined  in  the  great  procession,  which  marched 
through  Boston,  to  celebrate  the  event  of  the  intro- 
duction of  Cochituate  water,  and  as  I  was  made 
marshal  of  my  class  with  Russell  Sturgis  I  naturally 
attributed  tenfold  consequence  to  the  occasion.  As 
Boston  has  grown  its  water-supply  that  then  began 
has  grown  steadily  with  it,  and  now  comes  from  many 
sources  and  reservoirs  that  decorate  a  large  tract  of 
country  to  the  west. 

The  election  of  Taylor  was  one  of  the  immediate 
results  of  the  Mexican  War,  in  which  he  had  won 
great  distinction,  but  he  was  probably  as  unfitted 
for  the  presidency  as  General  Harrison,  whom  I  had 
assisted  in  electing  as  a  boy  of  eight  in  1840.  His 
nomination  had  been  declared  by  Mr.  Webster,  who 
should  have  had  it,  as  one  not  fit  to  be  made,  but 


[76] 

as  he  advised  his  friends,  nevertheless,  to  vote  for 
Taylor  as  a  safer  alternative  than  the  Democratic 
candidate,  we  all  joined  in  celebrating  the  prospect 
of  his  election.  I  remember  marching  in  a  torch- 
light procession  the  whole  length  of  Boston  to  the 
Roxbury  line,  where,  seeing  a  vacant  lot,  I  made 
haste  to  throw  my  torch  into  it  and  returned  to 
Cambridge  quite  satisfied  with  my  part. 

Then  in  the  midst  of  my  college  career  came  the 
great  compromises  of  1850,  sustained  by  Webster, 
Clay,  and  Calhoun,  which  we  foolishly  thought  had 
settled  the  slavery  question  forever,  although  within 
four  years  they  were  ripped  to  pieces,  and  the  great 
events  that  followed  led  rapidly  to  the  election  of 
Lincoln.  The  utter  collapse  of  these  compromises 
so  quickly  after  they  were  made,  although  they  were 
thought  at  that  time  to  be  of  the  greatest  historical 
importance,  shows  how  unreliable  is  the  judgment 
of  old  leaders,  who  have  outlived  their  best  powers 
and  have  no  appreciation  of  the  direction  which  the 
nation's  progress  is  taking.  Clay  and  Calhoun  both 
went  to  their  graves  in  1850,  and  Webster  followed 
them  two  years  afterwards,  on  the  24th  of  October, 
1852. 

The  reaction  of  public  opinion  was  instantaneous 
and  almost  universal.  The  great  New  England 
statesman's  yth  of  March  speech,  in  which  he  took 
the  ground  that  it  was  not  necessary  to  re-enact  the 
prohibition  of  slavery  in  regions  from  which,  as  he 
contended,  the  laws  of  nature  and  of  climate  had 


[77] 

made  its  existence  impracticable,  was  a  great  dis- 
appointment to  the  mass  of  the  people  at  the  North 
and  was  construed  by  them  as  a  bid  for  the  presi- 
dency in  the  next  federal  election,  and  as  an  aban- 
donment of  the  splendid  position  that  he  had  pre- 
viously occupied  as  the  representative  of  New 
England  sentiment  and  a  lifelong  advocate  of  the 
restriction  of  slavery,  so  far  as  the  Constitution 
would  permit.  The  doors  of  Faneuil  Hall,  that  his- 
toric cradle  of  liberty,  were  closed  against  his  friends, 
who  wished  to  do  him  honor  by  a  reception  there,  a 
very  stupid  blunder,  for  they  took  to  the  streets  and, 
erecting  a  great  platform  in  front  of  the  Revere 
House,  they  received  him  on  his  return  from  Wash- 
ington with  unbounded  enthusiasm  and  applause. 
I  was  present  on  that  occasion,  for  I  had  no  sym- 
pathy with  those  who  would  denounce  and  destroy 
him  after  his  wonderful  record  in  the  past,  and  it 
was  a  great  satisfaction  to  hear  the  brief  address  of 
welcome,  which  was  pronounced  by  Judge  Benjamin 
R.  Curtis,  and  Webster's  reply.  He  was  still  a  mag- 
nificent specimen  of  manhood  and  a  noble  orator, 
and  as  we  listened  to  him  we  could  not  but  think 
of  the  immense  services  which  he  had  rendered  to 
the  country;  especially  how  for  two  entire  genera- 
tions he  had  done  all  that  one  man  could  possibly  do 
to  arouse  in  the  hearts  of  the  young  men  of  the 
nation  an  intense  spirit  of  nationality  and  an  undy- 
ing devotion  to  the  great  cause  of  liberty  and  union. 
This  service  did  not  and  could  not  die  with  him  and 


counted  largely,  ten  years  afterwards,  in  the  grand 
uprising  of  the  North  for  the  defense  of  the  national 
existence  and  honor  when  the  rebel  assault  upon 
Fort  Sumter  gave  the  signal  for  the  opening  of  our 
terrible  Civil  War. 

The  other  event  to  which  I  have  referred,  the  ar- 
rival of  Louis  Kossuth,  in  1849,  was  an  event  of  sur- 
passing interest  to  all  the  people  of  America.  We 
had  sympathized  with  the  splendid  struggle  for  free- 
dom which  he  had  so  valiantly  maintained,  just  as 
we  are  sympathizing  to-day  with  the  great  struggle 
of  the  Entente  nations  for  the  overthrow  of  the  same 
destructive  militarism  which  succeeded  then  in 
crushing  this  great  champion  of  freedom,  just  as  it 
is  now  seeking,  but  without  success,  to  dominate  the 
entire  world. 

I  remember  that  we  were  having  one  of  our  semi- 
annual exhibitions,  as  they  were  called,  in  the  chapel, 
in  University  Hall,  on  the  day  when  Kossuth  ar- 
rived in  Cambridge  at  the  invitation  of  the  authori- 
ties of  the  university.  These  college  exhibitions 
usually  consisted  of  addresses  or  the  recitation  of 
parts,  by  meritorious  students,  and  took  place  semi- 
annually  as  rewards  of  merit.  I  happened  to  be 
upon  the  programme  but  had  finished  my  part  when 
Kossuth  arrived  and  was  ushered  into  the  chapel  by 
a  committee  of  citizens,  and  delivered  an  address  in 
as  perfect  English  as  I  have  ever  heard  from  any 
English  or  American  orator.  As  he  had  acquired  this 
knowledge  of  our  tongue  while  a  prisoner  in  an  Aus- 


MRS.  GEORGE  CHOATE. 

Born  at  Salem,  1805;  died  at  Stockbridge,  Mass.,  1887.  Mother  of  J.  H.  C.  Margaret 
Manning  Hodges,  daughter  of  Gamaliel  and  Sarah  Williams  Hodges,  married 
Doctor  Choate  in  1825.  Their  married  life  lasted  fifty-six  years  and  a  half,  and 
they  had  four  sons  and  two  daughters.  J.  H.  C.  was  the  fifth  child. 


Fort  Sumt' 
terrible 

Tht 
riv 


to  the 

f  the  national 


>cning  of  our 


•  o  which  I  have  referred,  the  ar- 
;suth,  in  1849,  was  an  event  of  sur- 
ro  all  the  people  of  America.  We 
with  the  splendid  stru^e  for  free- 
>  valiantly  mamum,  as 

«$  today  v^ith  the  great 

jhrow  of  the  s, 

in 


mi- 


in  I 

i  Kossuth  ar- 

>r.  at  the 

uthori- 

1 

*?    txhibitions 

uted  of  add<r 

rion  of 

c  ?.emi- 

.MT/.DH3   HO5IO3O  .Bfll 

jlpcned  to  be 

T7-                           ; 

Kossuti 
a  committee 

./  )3abh<W:xxi8 
.iagboH  ?mwlli'//  lUiB?  fan*  bilEmfiO  ^o  islr 

.  o  .  -       n        •-..''  ban  »i    "rl  ':,  .  ,  m  •  •  rfJ 
.blWo  rljlft  3H;  2sw  -O  .H  .1    - 

• 

noz  loot  b  Ell  xanj- 

an  address  in 

;>erfect 
English  or 
knowledge  of  o 


w^ard  from  any 

(uired  this 

pri*>t*rr  in  an  Aus- 


[79] 

trian  dungeon,  after  the  collapse  of  his  great  enter- 
prise, we  were  lost  in  wonder  at  the  readiness  of  the 
faculty  by  which  he  had  acquired  such  complete 
knowledge  of  a  new  language. 

I  have  seen  it  several  times  repeated  that  on  his 
sudden  advent  into  the  chapel  I  was  delivering  my 
part,  and  that  having  been  brushed  aside  by  his  en- 
try, I  in  some  way  addressed  him  after  his  speech 
with  a  tribute  of  admiration.  It  was  only  yesterday 
(November  27th,  1916)  that  I  read  in  the  personal 
recollections  just  published  by  one  of  my  contem- 
poraries at  Harvard,  this  extraordinary  statement, 
that  during  the  interruption  caused  by  his  entrance 
and  address,  I  "seated  on  the  stage  formed  a  Latin 
period  containing  a  graceful  reference  to  the  guest's 
career,  and  on  arising  to  resume  my  part,  opened 
with  the  extemporaneous  compliment  in  Latin,  which 
brought  the  Magyar  orator  again  to  his  feet  and, 
amidst  a  new  explosion  of  applause,  Kossuth  replied 
in  faultless  Latin,  speaking  as  though  it  were  his 
native  tongue.  Nothing  could  have  been  finer." 
This  was  a  pure  outbreak  of  my  friend's  imagination. 
I  had  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  it,  for  Addison 
Brown,  who  afterwards  was  our  much-admired  ad- 
miralty judge  in  New  York  for  twenty-five  years,  was 
on  the  platform  when  Kossuth  entered,  and  no  ad- 
dress or  reference  to  him  was  made,  as  the  programme 
proceeded,  except  a  few  words  of  reception  by  the 
president  of  the  university,  but  it  only  shows  how 
dangerous  it  is  for  men  in  the  ninth  decade  to  write 


[80] 

and  publish  reminiscences,  which,  up  to  this  time, 
I  have  always  tried  to  avoid. 

Harvard  College  at  the  time  I  entered  it  was  a 
comparatively  small  affair,  and  as  provincial  and 
local  as  could  well  be  imagined,  and  the  idea  of  its 
ever  becoming  the  great  national  university  had,  I 
think,  never  entered  into  anybody's  head.  The  stu- 
dents in  my  first  year  numbered  only  549,  including 
all  the  professional  schools,  there  being  theological 
students,  19;  law  students,  96;  medical  students, 
139;  special  students  in  chemistry  and  mathematics, 
and  citizens  attending  lectures  in  scientific  school, 
16;  and  resident  graduates,  6,  amounting  together 
to  276;  and  the  undergraduates  being  divided  be- 
tween seniors,  75;  juniors,  58;  sophomores,  68;  and 
freshmen,  72,  amounting  in  all  to  273;  the  whole 
comparing  strangely  with  modern  years,  when  a  single 
graduating  class  has  numbered  over  500,  or  nearly 
twice  as  many  as  the  entire  body  of  undergraduates 
at  that  early  period,  and  the  growth  of  the  profes- 
sional and  graduate  departments  has  increased  pro- 
portionally. 

My  own  class  and  all  the  classes  of  that  time  were 
composed  chiefly  of  New  England  boys,  a  very  few 
coming  from  New  York,  and  about  an  equal  number 
from  the  South,  whose  people  of  wealth  had  long 
been  in  the  habit  of  sending  their  boys  to  Harvard. 
I  call  it  provincial  and  local  because  its  scope  and 
outlook  hardly  extended  beyond  the  boundaries  of 
New  England.  Besides  which  it  was  very  denomina- 


tional,  being  held  exclusively  in  the  hands  of  Uni- 
tarians. The  president  and  all  the  fellows  constitut- 
ing the  corporation  were  Unitarians,  a  majority  of 
the  overseers  were  Unitarians,  and  I  think  that  a 
majority  of  the  officers  of  instruction  and  govern- 
ment were  of  the  same  faith.  This  caused  it  to  be 
looked  upon  askance  by  the  rest  of  the  United  States, 
where  that  faith  had  not  extended  far,  and  they  hesi- 
tated to  send  their  sons  to  Harvard  for  fear  of  what 
they  called  its  heretical  tendencies.  It  is  true  that 
at  that  time  the  people  of  Massachusetts  were  largely 
of  that  faith,  and  the  clergy  of  that  body  in  that 
commonwealth  far  exceeded  in  intellectual  and  per- 
sonal force  those  of  all  the  other  denominations. 
There  was  a  freshman,  when  I  was  a  senior,  who  was 
destined  to  exercise  tremendous  influence  in  breaking 
down  these  narrow  barriers  and  vastly  broadening 
the  character  and  the  influence  of  the  college.  I 
mean  Bishop  Phillips  Brooks,  of  the  class  of  '55, 
whom  I  remember  perfectly  well  as  a  freshman,  a 
tall  and  slender  stripling  overtopping  the  rest  of  his 
class,  in  a  distant  corner  of  the  chapel,  and  I  followed 
his  course  with  admiration  and  enthusiasm  until, 
with  other  men  of  similar  liberal  tendencies,  he  had 
made  the  college  entirely  undenominational  and 
opened  its  doors,  its  curriculum,  and  its  associations 
very  wide,  so  as  to  admit  men  of  all  faiths,  and  of  no 
faith,  and  men  of  all  nations  to  be  enrolled  in  the 
undergraduate  classes.  We  had  compulsory  college 
prayers,  held  at  the  unearthly  hours  of  seven  o'clock 


[82] 

in  the  morning  in  winter,  and  six  in  the  summer,  and 
the  rush  from  our  beds  at  the  sound  of  the  bell  to 
the  chapel  was  most  unseemly,  but  Phillips  Brooks 
lived  to  be  the  instrument  of  removing  all  compul- 
sion, and  made  the  college  in  a  religious  point  of  view 
absolutely  free.  Instead  of  being  limited  to  Uni- 
tarian preachers  at  prayers  and  on  Sundays,  it  now 
has  a  body  of  religious  teachers  gathered  from  all 
sects  and  faiths,  and  various  parts  of  the  country, 
and  commands  for  the  service  the  greatest  ability  to 
be  found  in  all,  and  the  annual  catalogue  now  contains 
the  names  of  boys  of  all  countries  and  all  religions, 
Christians  and  Jews,  Asiatics,  Europeans,  South 
Americans,  and  those  who  have  had  their  birth  in 
the  islands  of  the  sea,  and  already  it  has  contributed 
much  by  the  education  of  Japanese  and  Chinese  to 
the  modernization  of  those  ancient  lands.  The  sug- 
gestion of  such  a  result  in  my  time  would  have  been 
received  as  an  absolute  impossibility. 

Many  experiments  have  been  made  and  much 
improvement,  undoubtedly,  has  been  accomplished 
in  the  last  seventy  years  in  methods  of  education, 
but  after  all  I  am  inclined  to  the  belief  that  these 
varying  methods  have  resulted  chiefly  in  the  better 
development  of  the  youth  of  inferior  and  average 
capacity  and  ability,  and  that  under  them  all  the 
men  of  natural  superiority  of  talents  and  faculty,  de- 
termined to  get  an  education  and  relying  chiefly  upon 
their  own  efforts  for  this,  have  risen  naturally  to  the 
top,  and  subsequently  taken  their  lead  in  the  life  of 


[83] 

their  time.  That  is  to  say,  take  the  ten  classes  from 
1846  to  1856,  and  they  can  furnish,  as  the  catalogue 
shows,  a  group  of  men  educated  at  Harvard  who  can 
compare  favorably  with  the  best  men  of  any  subse- 
quent decade  in  the  history  of  the  university.  Let 
me  mention  a  few  in  this  older  decade  for  whom  I 
would  challenge  comparison  with  any  similar  num- 
ber in  any  later  period.  There  were  Professors  Fran- 
cis James  Child,  George  Martin  Lane,  and  Charles 
Eliot  Norton,  and  Senator  George  Frisbie  Hoar,  of 
the  class  of '46;  William  C.  Endicott,  of '47;  Professor 
Cook,  the  great  chemist,  and  Dean  Hoffman,  of  '48; 
my  brother,  Charles  Francis  Choate,  first  scholar  in 
the  class  of  '49,  and  his  classmate,  Horace  Davis, 
president  of  the  University  of  California;  James  C. 
Carter,  Thomas  Jefferson  Coolidge,  and  John  Noble, 
in  the  class  of  '50;  Professors  Dunbar,  Goodwin,  and 
Langdell,  of  '51;  my  brother,  William  Gardner 
Choate,  first  scholar  in  the  class  of  '52,  and  his  class- 
mates Judge  Addison  Brown,  Doctor  David  Williams 
Cheever,  Professor  Gurney,  dean  and  fellow  of  the 
university;  Professors  James  Bradley  Thayer  and 
William  Robert  Ware;  Charles  William  Eliot,  and 
Professors  Adams  Sherman  Hill,  James  Mills  Peirce, 
and  Justin  Winsor,  of  the  class  of  '53;  Horace  How- 
ard Furness,  of  the  class  of  '54;  Theodore  Lyman  and 
Chief  Justice  James  Tyndale  Mitchell,  of  the  class  of 
'55;  and  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Governor  George 
D.  Robinson,  and  Judge  Jeremiah  Smith,  of  the  class 
of  '56.  Take  these  men  as  examples,  and  where  in 


[84] 

any  subsequent  decade  can  you  find  an  equal  num- 
ber to  excel  them,  or  perhaps  to  match  with  them  as 
the  fruit  of  varying  systems  of  training  and  educa- 
tion, allowing  always  for  the  immense  growth  in  the 
numbers  of  the  classes  from  which  selection  might  be 
made  ? 

There  was  one  immense  advantage  which  the  boys 
of  our  time  at  Harvard  enjoyed  over  those  of  recent 
years,  the  classes  were  so  small  in  number  that  we 
became  intimately  acquainted  with  each  other,  much 
more  intimately  than  at  any  subsequent  period  of 
life  with  any  similar  number  of  acquaintances,  under- 
stood one  another's  character  perfectly,  and  formed 
the  closest  ties  of  friendship  and  a  strong  class-feeling 
that  continued  unbroken  through  life;  while  now, 
as  I  understand,  where  the  classes  are  numbered  by 
hundreds,  no  such  state  of  things  is  possible,  and  very 
few  members  of  any  class  know  in  a  similar  way  the 
whole  or  even  half  of  their  associates.  Groups  and 
cliques  of  friends  are  formed,  but  there  is  no  genuine 
class-feeling  in  which  all  unite  as  in  the  old  days.  I 
think,  too,  that  there  was  then  no  such  distance  be- 
tween the  professors  and  the  students  as  now  pre- 
vails. We  came  to  know  them  well,  and  it  was  quite 
possible  for  any  professor  or  tutor  to  become  ac- 
quainted with  and  to  become  familiar  with  the  men- 
tal and  moral  qualities  of  the  members  of  each  divi- 
sion of  the  class,  for  in  almost  all  the  courses  the  class 
was  divided  alphabetically  into  two  divisions. 

No  friendships  of  after-life  begin  to  equal  in  ardor 


[85] 

and  intensity  those  of  college  days,  and  no  names 
ever  become  so  familiar  as  those  of  the  associates  of 
that  early  period  of  life.  I  have  in  my  bedroom  the 
photographs  of  eighty-five  of  our  members,  all  but 
three  of  the  entire  number,  in  all  the  beauty  and 
freshness  of  youth,  just  as  they  appeared  on  Com- 
mencement Day  in  1852,  when  we  graduated  and 
parted,  never  to  meet  again  in  full  ranks.  The  cos- 
tumes of  that  day  seem  a  little  peculiar  now,  for  we 
all  wore  long  hair  and  high  collars  and  huge  neck- 
handkerchiefs,  which  long  since  passed  out  of  fashion. 
I  often  put  myself  to  sleep  by  calling  the  roll  of  my 
classmates,  whose  names  are  as  familiar  now  as  then. 
In  our  freshman  year  all  the  studies  were  required, 
consisting  chiefly  of  Latin,  Greek,  and  mathematics, 
which  I  still  regard  as  of  extremely  great  value  in  the 
training  of  youthful  minds.  Our  study  of  the  lan- 
guages was  in  the  main  limited  to  the  correct  con- 
struction of  the  Greek  and  the  Latin,  so  as  to  get 
the  correct  and  full  meaning  out  of  every  sentence, 
and  to  do  that  necessarily  required  great  concentra- 
tion and  accuracy  and  perseverance,  traits  of  enor- 
mous value  in  any  subsequent  pursuits,  and  without 
which  any  real  success  in  them  is  hardly  possible, 
but  we  were  sadly  lacking  in  any  intelligent  study 
of  the  glorious  history  and  literature  of  Greece  and 
Rome,  which  would  have  made  our  studies  so  much 
more  delightful.  Afterwards,  with  increasing  free- 
dom from  year  to  year,  our  programme  of  studies 
was  made  more  and  more  liberal,  and  the  elective 


[86] 

system  began  to  show  its  effect,  although  not  nearly 
so  much  as  in  later  years,  for  still  many  subjects  were 
required.  A  diligent  student  was  kept  pretty  busy, 
for  I  see  by  the  tabular  view  of  our  exercises  during 
the  year  1851-52  that  our  recitations  began  at  eight 
in  the  morning  and  continued  with  more  or  less  in- 
terruptions until  six  at  night,  and  the  hour  of  morn- 
ing prayers  was  at  seven  o'clock  from  September  to 
April,  and  at  six  o'clock  from  the  first  Monday  in 
April  until  Commencement;  breakfast  was  immedi- 
ately after  morning  prayers,  and  dinner  at  one 
o'clock  throughout  the  year. 

I  chose  for  my  special  studies  Latin  and  Greek 
throughout  my  college  course,  and  never  had  occa- 
sion to  regret  it,  for  the  same  mental  exercises  that 
required  perfection  in  those  subjects  stood  me  well 
in  hand  all  through  the  rest  of  my  life  in  solving  prob- 
lems of  law  and  diplomacy,  or  anything  else  that  I 
had  to  work  upon.  I  also  found  that  committing  to 
memory,  although  never  required,  was  of  infinite 
value  as  a  mental  discipline,  and  have  always  won- 
dered why  it  has  not  been  more  generally  kept  up. 
When  I  graduated  I  could  repeat  from  memory  the 
whole  of  the  first  book  of  Milton's  "  Paradise  Lost," 
and  many  other  valuable  gems  of  English  literature, 
and  I  wish  that  I  had  continued  it  until  the  present 
day,  for  I  am  sure  that  such  a  habit  continued  through 
a  long  life  would  keep  the  mind  well  stored  with  the 
most  precious  passages  of  English  literature  of  all 
times  and  of  every  variety,  and  would  be  an  infinite 


[8?] 

solace  and  satisfaction.  But  I  gave  up  the  habit 
when  I  left  college  and  became  busy  in  what  seemed 
at  that  time  to  be  more  important  matters,  and  while 
much  that  I  then  learned  in  that  way  still  lingers  in 
my  memory,  the  most  of  it  has  vanished,  so  that  ex- 
cept for  the  few  opening  sentences  of  "  Paradise  Lost " 
the  only  sentence  that  I  can  now  recall  is  the  one 
that  I  found  it  most  difficult  to  commit  to  memory 
and  fix  in  the  gray  matter  of  the  brain,  and  which 
when  once  lodged  there  has  never  escaped: 

"  From  Aroer  to  Nebo,  and  the  wild 
Of  southmost  Abarim;  in  Hesebon 
And  Horonaim,  Seons  Realm,  beyond 
The  flowry  Dale  of  Sibma,  clad  with  vines. 
And  Eleale  to  the  Asphaltic  Pool." 

I  am  sorry  to  say  that  until  Mr.  Lane  returned 
from  abroad  to  become  tutor  in  Latin  we  had  no 
first-class  teaching  in  either  that  or  Greek.  Too 
much  of  our  work  was  routine  work,  studying  the 
texts  of  prescribed  volumes  and  reciting  by  rote, 
and  lectures  at  first  were  very  scarce,  indeed.  I  re- 
member in  our  freshman  year  only  one  course  of 
three  lectures  by  Professor  John  Ware,  on  the 
"  Means  of  Preserving  Health,"  which  were  very  wise 
and  very  good;  but  as  we  progressed  in  later  years 
we  had  better  luck,  and  by  the  time  we  came  to  be 
juniors  and  seniors  it  was  our  great  good  fortune  to 
be  able  to  listen  to  lectures  from  Professor  Channing 
on  rhetoric,  Longfellow  on  modern  literature,  Lover- 


[88] 

ing  on  electricity,  Gray  on  botany,  and,  above  all, 
the  great  Agassiz  on  geology.  From  all  these  we 
really  felt  that  we  were  learning  a  great  deal,  but  the 
most  unique,  critical,  and  delightful  of  all  the  pro- 
fessors of  our  time  was  Professor  Edward  Tyler  Chan- 
ning,  who  was  Boylston  Professor  of  Rhetoric  and 
Oratory  from  1819  to  1851,  a  period  of  thirty-two 
years,  during  which,  as  I  believe,  he  did  more  to  form 
what  I  may  call  the  Harvard  style  of  speech  and 
writing  than  any  other  individual  influence.  One  of 
the  greatest  joys  of  life  was  to  attend  his  hours,  when 
our  themes  and  forensics,  for  which  he  had  given  us 
subjects  two  weeks  before,  were  before  him  for  ex- 
amination and  criticism.  He  was  a  deadly  foe  of  all 
splurging  and  extravagance  of  expression,  and  to  all 
obscurity  of  language,  and  his  criticisms  were  as 
piercing  and  caustic  as  they  were  delightful.  Prun- 
ing and  weeding  out  and  sarcastic  elimination  were 
his  great  weapons,  and  if  the  Harvard  men  of  that 
time  were,  as  I  think  they  were  generally,  given  to 
clearness,  force,  and  earnestness,  he  is  very  chiefly 
entitled  to  the  credit  of  it  all. 

Our  examinations  did  not  amount  to  much,  and  I 
think  never  did  until  long  after  we  left  college.  We 
were  pretty  carefully  examined  on  entering  to  test 
our  qualifications  for  admission,  but  never  after  that, 
that  I  can  recall,  were  we  subjected  to  any  serious 
examination  or  to  any  written  examinations  at  all. 
Every  year  the  corporation  appointed  a  board  of  ex- 
aminers in  each  of  the  subjects  into  which  our  cur- 


[89] 

riculum  was  divided.  They  were  gentlemen  of  dis- 
tinction from  various  parts  of  the  State  of  Massa- 
chusetts, and  I  think  none  from  any  other  part  of  the 
country.  They  were  not  specially  versed,  as  a  rule, 
in  the  subjects  on  which  they  were  appointed  exam- 
iners. On  the  day  appointed  for  examination  some 
of  them  would  appear  in  each  department  and  have 
seats  assigned  them  on  the  platform,  and  sit  in  silence 
while  the  professor  or  instructor  examined  us  on 
something  that  we  had  recently  learned.  I  do  not 
remember  any  one  of  them  ever  asking  any  question, 
and,  of  course,  it  was  not  difficult  to  receive  their 
approval  and  even  commendation,  and  it  never  re- 
quired any  examination  to  get  out  of  college.  Every- 
thing went  by  marks  in  those  days,  the  accumulation 
of  marks  through  the  four  years  (eight,  I  believe) 
being  the  highest  mark,  and  from  there  graded  down 
to  zero.  It  was  well  said  in  one  of  our  mock  parts 
that  the  Gospel  of  Mark  was  the  guide  to  the  scholar, 
and  the  declaration  of  Tom  Whitridge,  of  the  class 
of  '18,  of  which  my  father  was  a  member,  that  if  it 
had  taken  as  severe  an  examination  to  get  out  of 
college  as  it  had  to  get  in,  he  would  have  laid  his 
bones  there,  continued  traditional  and  true  down  to 
our  time. 

We  got  absolutely  nothing  from  the  morning  and 
evening  prayers.  They  served  merely  as  contri- 
vances for  getting  the  boys  out  of  bed  in  the  morning 
and  preventing  their  leaving  the  college  before  night. 
The  prayer-makers  did  not  seem  to  take  much  more 


[90] 

interest  in  them  than  the  boys  themselves,  although 
it  was  sometimes  difficult  for  them  to  stop  when  they 
got  under  way,  and  the  story  went  that  at  one  of  the 
morning  prayers  the  minister  delivered  himself  in 
this  way:  "O  Lord,  we  pray  thee  to  make  the  in- 
temperate temperate,  the  insincere  sincere,  and  the 
industrious  Mustrious."  So  when  Phillips  Brooks 
arose  in  his  might  and  insisted  upon  abolishing  all 
requirements,  it  must  have  been  a  great  relief  to  the 
college,  and  a  blessing  to  all  who  afterwards  cared 
to  attend,  as  they  did  in  great  numbers. 

On  the  whole,  my  four  years  at  Harvard,  from 
1848  to  1852,  were  the  best  and  happiest  period  of  my 
life,  as  I  believe  that  they  were  of  most  of  the  boys. 
We  were  blessed  with  all  the  spirits  of  youth,  with 
no  responsibilities,  no  cares,  and  with  only  the  in- 
spiration of  our  individual  ambition.  Upon  the 
whole,  Harvard  College,  with  its  delightful  memories 
and  associations,  its  lofty  and  well-maintained  stand- 
ards, and  its  ever-growing  greatness  and  power,  has 
been  the  best  and  most  wholesome  influence  upon 
my  life,  from  the  day  of  graduation,  when  I  was  one 
of  the  youngest  of  her  children,  until  to-day,  when  I 
stand  upon  the  catalogue  Number  14  among  her 
14,000  surviving  graduates,  and  to  receive  the  ap- 
proval of  Harvard  men  throughout  the  world  has 
always  been  a  sufficient  satisfaction  and  reward. 


JOSEPH  HODGES  CHOATE  AT  THE  AGE  OF  TWENTY. 

This    picture   was    taken   with    his   class    at   graduation    in    1852.     The   original 
daguerreotype  is  in  the  Harvard  Library  at  Cambridge. 


:mselves,  a! 

u!t  for  them  to  stop  when  they 
c  stoi  y  vvent  that  at  one  of  the 
minister  delivered  himself  in 
we  pray  thee  to  make  the  in- 
insincere  sincere,  and  the 
So  when   Phillips   Brooks 
d  upon  abolishing  all 
?  great  relief  to  the 
»  *faik  jtfterw^rcis  cared 


We  were  blessed  with  all  the 


-tand  up 
14,000  **; 

,  Unigho   sriT     .sj8l    ni    n 

.38bndrtnO  J 


in- 

tful  memories 
ined  stand- 
f*«  ait<i  power,  has 
-iidmncr  upon 
.  ficn  I  was  one 
;o-day,  when  I 
bcr  14  among  her 
to  receive  the  ap- 


3HT  TA 


3s 


rijiw 
«i  si 


eirf'f 


VI 
TRAINING  FOR  THE  BAR 

The  Law  School,  when  I  entered  it  in  1852,  was, 
like  each  of  the  other  departments  of  the  university, 
a  comparatively  small  affair.  In  our  entering  class 
there  were  only  forty-seven,  and  the  other  two  classes 
were  of  smaller  numbers.  What  there  was  of  teach- 
ing was  done  by  two  professors,  and  a  university  lec- 
turer, Judge  Joel  Parker,  who  had  been  chief  justice 
of  New  Hampshire,  and  Theophilus  Parsons,  who 
had  been  a  very  successful  lawyer  in  Boston,  and  was 
the  son  of  the  chief  justice  of  Massachusetts  of  the 
same  name.  Judge  Parker,  the  Royal  Professor  of 
Law,  was  an  exceedingly  profound  and  learned  law- 
yer. He  was  so  erudite  and  profound  that  we  of  the 
lighter  minds  really  could  not  successfully  follow  the 
action  of  his,  although  men  of  sterner  faculties,  like 
Carter  and  Langdell  and  my  two  brothers,  got  very 
much  out  of  him;  but  to  me  the  great  light  of  the 
Law  School,  while  I  was  there,  was  Professor  Parsons, 
a  lawyer  of  much  smaller  caliber  and  lighter  vein, 
but  who,  having  had  great  experience  at  the  bar, 
had  a  delightful  way  of  giving  us  the  general  prin- 
ciples of  law  in  a  manner  that  made  a  lasting  im- 
pression upon  our  minds,  and  gave  me  many  points 
that  I  remembered  and  made  use  of  in  all  my  subse- 

[91] 


[92] 

quent  career  at  the  bar.  The  university  lecturer, 
Judge  Loring,  probate  judge  in  Boston,  came  out 
for  three  or  four  lectures  a  week  on  such  subjects  as 
did  not  come  within  the  programme  of  the  two  pro- 
fessors. The  only  course  of  his  that  I  can  remember 
attending  was  on  the  domestic  relations,  and  I  can 
only  recall  that  he  was  an  exceedingly  conservative 
man,  and  a  good  deal  behind  the  age,  even  for  that 
time.  The  gist  of  his  discourse  upon  the  marital  re- 
lations may  be  judged  from  the  fact  of  his  saying  re- 
peatedly the  stereotype  utterance:  "The  husband 
and  wife  are  one,  and  that  one  is  the  husband."  The 
standard  at  the  school  was  very  low  at  that  time. 
There  were  absolutely  no  examinations  to  get  in,  or 
to  proceed,  or  to  get  out.  All  that  was  required  was 
the  lapse  of  time,  two  years,  and  the  payment  of  the 
fees,  and  not  to  have  got  into  any  disgrace  while  in 
the  school.  With  that  we  were  sure  of  the  degree  of 
Bachelor  of  Laws  at  the  end  of  the  second  year.  I 
see  that  there  was  a  Committee  on  Visiting  the  Law 
School,  consisting  of  very  eminent  lawyers  and  judges, 
all  of  Massachusetts,  but  I  do  not  recall  their  ever 
visiting  the  school,  individually  or  collectively,  or 
exercising  any  of  the  powers  of  examiners.  Our  right 
to  the  degree  consisted  in  having  attended  more  or 
less  of  the  lectures  and  paid  our  fees,  as  I  have  said. 
Nevertheless,  we  did  learn  a  great  deal  of  law. 
The  library  for  the  time  was  exceedingly  good,  and 
we  formed  among  ourselves  law  clubs,  in  which  moot 
courts  were  held,  and  cases  tried  and  argued,  and 


[93] 

briefs  prepared  and  submitted,  the  elder  members 
acting  as  judges,  and  once,  at  the  end  of  the  year, 
there  was  a  mock  trial  in  which  members  of  the  junior 
class  of  the  college  were  impanelled  as  jurors,  and 
members  of  the  graduating  class,  selected  for  the 
purpose,  tried  the  case  before  them.  And  what  was 
more,  Boston  was  very  near,  where  the  courts  were 
constantly  in  session,  and  to  which  we  resorted  freely 
for  instruction  and  entertainment. 

It  was  while  at  the  Law  School  that  I  formed  a 
more  intimate  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Rufus  Choate, 
then  at  the  head  of  the  profession  in  Massachusetts, 
and,  I  should  say,  in  the  whole  country,  and  became 
very  much  interested  in  his  personality  and  in  his 
methods.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  he  was  a  won- 
derful orator,  but  besides  that  he  was  one  of  the 
most  fascinating  personalities  that  I  had  ever  known. 
To  hear  him  in  court  or  on  the  platform,  or  in  private 
conversation  was  a  very  great  treat,  and  he  was  one 
of  the  most  affectionate  and  warm-hearted  of  men. 
In  my  last  year  in  the  Law  School  he  invited  me  to 
go  with  him  on  a  journey  to  the  White  Mountains, 
and,  of  course,  I  eagerly  accepted  the  rare  oppor- 
tunity, and  in  those  three  days  I  learned  how  fast  he 
was  using  up  his  life  and  his  powers.  We  started 
from  his  house  in  Boston  very  early  on  Thursday 
morning,  and  got  back  there  very  late  on  Saturday 
night.  We  seemed  to  be  going  at  full  speed  all  the 
time.  The  railroads  at  that  date  had  not  opened  all 
the  way  to  the  Crawford  House,  or  from  there  through 


[94] 

the  mountains,  but  we  took  special  wagons  from  the 
railroad  terminus  and  went  at  the  best  speed  that 
could  be  made,  although  he  seemed  to  be  very  much 
afraid  of  horses.  I  remember  that  when  we  got  to 
the  Crawford  House,  late  at  night,  it  was  very  cold 
(and  he  was  always  oppressed  by  the  cold),  but  when 
we  entered  the  door  of  the  hotel  and  saw  a  grand  fire 
of  great  logs  burning  in  the  fireplace,  he  warmed  up 
at  once,  and  turning  to  me  he  said :  "  Do  you  remem- 
ber that  grand  verse  in  Isaiah:  'Aha,  I  am  warm,  I 
have  seen  the  fire'  ?"  The  mere  sight  of  the  blazing 
logs  seemed  to  penetrate  his  body  at  once.  Even 
for  that  short  journey  he  carried  a  trunkful  of  books, 
as  it  seemed  to  me,  in  Greek,  Latin,  and  English,  and 
although  there  was  not  much  time  to  read  as  we  trav- 
elled, I  have  an  impression  that  he  overhauled  them 
during  the  night  and  made  much  use  of  them.  His 
conversation  at  all  times  was  most  edifying  and  en- 
joyable, full  of  references  to  delightful  things  that  he 
had  read  in  books,  and  lighted  up  by  genuine  wit  and 
humor,  but  he  really  made  a  labor  of  the  journey  in 
endeavoring  to  cover  such  considerable  distances,  and 
to  crowd  into  three  days  what  might  well  have  taken 
as  many  weeks  in  that  era  that  knew  nothing  of  rapid 
transit.  When  we  reached  Boston  and  got  back  to 
his  house  he  said  to  me:  "Now,  that  is  my  vacation 
for  this  year."  It  was  at  this  rate  that  he  had 
worked  from  the  time  he  left  the  United  States  Sen- 
ate in  1845,  and  that  he  continued  to  work  to  his 
untimely  end  in  1859,  when  he  was  a  little  short  of 


[95] 

sixty.  He  ought  to  have  lived  to  a  serene  old  age, 
but  he  literally  crowded  into  his  sixty  years  the  work 
of,  at  least,  eighty,  winning  great  renown,  giving  vast 
delight  to  the  men  and  women  of  his  own  time,  and 
leaving  such  an  impress  upon  the  age  that  succeeded 
him  that,  as  Mr.  Dana  well  said,  the  lawyers  of 
America,  when  they  met  for  mutual  conversation  and 
entertainment,  found  that  they  could  do  better  by 
reminiscences  of  Rufus  Choate  than  by  anything  that 
they  could  themselves  present. 

It  was  during  my  time  in  college  and  at  the  Law 
School  that  the  trial  of  the  famous  fugitive  slave  cases 
took  place  in  Boston,  upon  which  the  eager  attention 
of  the  whole  nation  was  turned.  The  general  feeling 
of  the  collegians  and  the  members  of  the  Law  School 
tended  to  be  very  conservative,  for  we  had  been 
brought  up,  you  may  say,  at  the  feet  of  Daniel  Web- 
ster, who  was  chiefly  responsible  for  the  compromise 
measures  of  1850,  including  the  fugitive  slave  law, 
which  professed  to  be  properly  devised  to  carry  out 
the  provisions  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  requiring  the  return  from  one  State  to  an- 
other of  persons  held  to  service  or  labor.  I  do  not 
think  that,  with  the  exception  of  the  extreme  aboli- 
tionists, such  as  William  Lloyd  Garrison  and  Wendell 
Phillips,  there  was  much  dispute  as  to  the  necessity 
of  a  proper  law  for  that  purpose,  if  we  intended  to 
stand  by  the  Constitution,  but  there  was  great  ground 
for  contention  on  the  subject  of  the  method  of  bring- 
ing about  the  return  of  fugitive  slaves.  All  that  the 


[96] 

Constitution  said  was  that  they  should  be  delivered 
up,  and  it  was  well  maintained  by  the  opponents  of 
the  law  of  1850  that  that  did  not  dispense  with  the 
usual  safeguards  and  guarantees  of  personal  freedom, 
and  that,  instead  of  being  tried  before  a  single  com- 
missioner, the  fugitives  were  entitled  to  a  trial  by 
jury,  as  I  think  they  certainly  were.  But  the  statute 
had  made  no  such  provision,  and  so  a  small  number  of 
fugitives  were  surrendered  and  carried  back  by  force 
to  their  original  masters  in  the  South.  These  few  in 
number,  however,  had  a  very  great  effect  in  arousing 
the  popular  indignation,  and  were  a  very  important 
factor  in  bringing  about  in  a  few  years  the  overthrow 
of  the  whole  system  of  slavery  under  the  wise  ad- 
ministration of  Lincoln. 

During  my  two  years  at  the  Law  School  I  earned, 
for  the  first  time,  my  own  living  by  preparing  boys 
for  entrance  to  Harvard,  which  consumed  about  two 
hours  of  each  day,  and  in  which  I  found  great  benefit 
in  reviving  and  keeping  alive  my  knowledge  of  the 
classics,  and  I  discovered  that  in  teaching  one  learned 
more  than  he  knew  before. 

After  leaving  the  Law  School,  as  a  third  year  was 
required  and  an  examination  before  admission  to  the 
bar,  I  was  privileged  to  enter  the  office  of  Hodges  and 
Saltonstall,  in  Boston,  and  spent  a  year  at  my  father's 
home  at  Salem,  going  up  every  day  for  the  purpose 
by  train.  Business  was  not  then  so  driving  among 
lawyers  as  it  afterwards  became,  and  a  very  consid- 
erable portion  of  my  time  during  that  year  was  spent 


[97] 

in  attending  the  courts,  where  I  learned  more  than 
I  had  learned  anywhere  else  as  to  the  trial  and  argu- 
ment of  cases.  There  was  almost  always  during  the 
greater  part  of  the  year  some  important  trial  going 
on,  and  in  this  trial  two  or  three  leaders  were  always 
engaged.  These  were  Rufus  Choate,  Sidney  Bart- 
lett,  and  Charles  G.  Loring.  It  is  needless  to  say 
that  the  trials  in  the  Supreme  Court  were  conducted 
with  the  greatest  dignity  and  decorum,  and  nothing 
could  be  more  instructive  to  a  student  of  the  law 
than  to  sit  in  the  presence  of  such  a  tribunal  and 
listen  to  the  trial  and  argument  of  cases  by  three 
such  eminent  men.  They  were  nearly  the  same  age, 
but  their  styles  were  very  different. 

Mr.  Choate's  exuberant  eloquence,  with  a  mind 
richly  stored  with  a  vast  wealth  of  reading  and  knowl- 
edge, and  an  unbounded  human  sympathy,  made 
him,  I  think,  the  greatest  advocate  that  America  has 
ever  known.  In  the  argument  of  questions  of  law 
he  was  a  very  close  reasoner,  with  a  rich  gift  of  illus- 
tration, so  that  it  was  almost  impossible  for  him  to 
lose  a  case  that  could  by  any  possibility  have  been 
won;  but  it  was  his  fascinating  personality  that  car- 
ried all  before  him  with  the  jury.  He  never  over- 
looked a  fact  or  an  incident  that  could  by  any  possi- 
bility aid  his  side  of  the  case,  and  would  form  a 
theory  upon  the  facts  presented  which  would  com- 
mend itself  to  his  conscience  and  judgment,  and  win, 
if  it  was  possible  to  win,  the  approval  of  the  jury. 
His  patience,  tenacity  of  purpose,  and  exceeding  good 


humor  would  carry  the  day  over  any  ordinary  ad- 
versary. He  would  not  only  address  the  jury  as  a 
whole  body,  but  would  fasten  upon  each  individual 
juryman  in  turn,  of  whose  sympathy  he  was  not  al- 
ready sure,  and  stick  to  him  until  he  had  mastered 
him,  so  that  I  have  no  doubt  he  occasionally  won  a 
verdict  which  any  other  man  would  have  lost,  and 
which,  perhaps,  he  ought  to  have  lost,  although  from 
a  long  experience  in  jury  trials  I  am  satisfied  that  in 
nine  cases  out  of  ten  the  jury  decide  right  upon  the 
evidence,  whoever  tries  the  case. 

Mr.  Bartlett  was  as  unlike  Mr.  Choate  as  one  man 
could  possibly  differ  from  another.  Cold  and  sharp, 
and  glittering  as  steel,  he  would  push  aside  all  that 
the  fancy  and  imagination  of  his  adversary  had 
brought  into  the  case,  and  hold  the  courts  to  the 
main  point,  and  the  jury  to  one  or  two  cardinal  facts, 
which  would  compel  them,  if  the  case  made  it  pos- 
sible, to  find  a  verdict  for  his  side.  He  was  very 
learned,  too,  but  had  never,  I  believe,  been  such  a 
student  as  his  more  celebrated  adversary,  and  he  had 
the  rare  advantage  (I  say  rare  to  a  great  lawyer)  of 
extraordinary  business  experience  and  faculties,  and 
an  extreme  common  sense,  which,  after  all,  is  the 
thing  which  ought  to  govern  both  courts  and  juries. 
With  a  vast  business  always  on  hand,  he  never  wore 
himself  out  by  travelling  on  his  nerves,  to  die  at  fifty- 
nine,  as  his  chief  opponent  did,  but  lived  a  long,  use- 
ful, and  happy  life  in  the  very  front  rank  of  the  pro- 
fession, and  after  arguing  an  important  case  in  the 


RUFUS  CHOATE. 

Born  at  Hog  Island,  1799;  died  at  Halifax,  1859.  First  cousin  of  Doctor  George 
Choate.  This  was  J.  H.  C.'s  favorite  portrait  of  his  distinguished  kinsman,  and 
always  hung  in  his  own  room  over  his  bed.  He  had  a  great  admiration  and  af- 
fection for  Rufus  Choate,  and  always  felt  deeply  grateful  to  him  for  his  early 
kindnesses. 


>vcr  any  ordinary  ad- 

;iy.     He  v  ,nly  address  the  jury  as  a 

,-ten  upon  each  individual 

juryman  >,  i>!  whose  sympathy  he  was  not  al- 

ready st  until  he  had  mastered 

that  I  have  n  he  occasionally  won  a 

verdict  which  any  other  man  would  have  lost,  and 
h,  perhaps,  he  ought  to  h  i,  although  from 

a  lor  c  ui  jury  trials  1  am  amtisfied  that  in 

nine  cases  <  en  the  jury  <i*r  ipon  the 

evidence,  whoe  •*  the  t . 

Mr.  Bartl< 

and  ^.littering  a  ii  aside  aii  that 

*giiuitkm 


which  woi  Me  ca«e  made  it  pos- 

side.     He  was  very 

frrflHitri,  v  U  «,*  fi.  believe.,  been  such  a 

Crated  ad  versa  he  had 

•  great  l3v.  yer^)  o* 

extr«at4«  -:id 

•us  '..-••  ,  after  all,  is  the 

th  courts  and  juries. 

With  *  hand,  he  never  wore 

himseij  serves,  to  die  at  fifty- 

.3TAOHO  ZlflUX 

igiosD  lojood  lo  nieuoo  JeiH    .??8i   ,x£>rl*Hr  ft  I»rB  ;c^fT  ,td«M  gdK*!*  inSf 
..aiBii  b3deiu8na?ifa  aid  lo  ticrtiaMtrififud.yp  Jiiiwr-aJ/Tv  wljpiC)..  , 

,,o;Jfil;mb£  )Mia  a  bBrf  9H     .fcsrf  «5rf  i«o  Bfcl  nw..  ,id  n:  j.,,,.1  r.v^l* 

,  «a  ,oi 


[99] 

Supreme  Court  at  Washington  at  the  age  of  ninety, 
went  home  and  died  of  old  age. 

Mr.  Loring  was  wholly  unlike  either  of  the  other 
two  great  protagonists  at  the  Boston  bar.  He  com- 
manded the  confidence  of  the  whole  community  by 
his  great  weight  of  character.  He,  also,  had  great 
business  ability  and  experience,  and  was  always  mas- 
ter of  his  case,  so  that  when  he  spoke  to  court  or 
juries  they  not  only  believed  every  word  he  said,  but 
received  it  with  open  minds,  ready  to  be  convinced. 
There  was  never  any  nonsense  about  him.  Indeed, 
there  was  a  total  want  of  the  sense  of  humor, 
and  he  proved  always  to  be  a  most  formidable  an- 
tagonist. 

No  theatre  that  I  have  ever  attended  offered  so 
great  an  intellectual  treat  as  to  sit  at  the  feet  of  these 
three  great  masters  of  the  law,  and  listen  to  them 
from  beginning  to  end  of  a  great  argument  or  trial. 
It  is  a  wonderful  thing  for  a  law  school  to  be  in  close 
proximity  to  a  great  city,  where  the  students  can  see 
and  hear  justice  administered  according  to  the  high- 
est and  best  standards,  in  courts  presided  over  by 
learned  judges,  appointed  for  life  by  the  chief  execu- 
tive, as  up  to  this  day  has  been  the  case  in  Massa- 
chusetts, and  has  secured  for  the  people  of  that 
State,  at  any  rate,  a  government  of  laws  and  not  of 
men. 

The  office  of  Hodges  and  Saltonstall,  in  which  I 
spent  a  year  from  October,  1854,  to  October,  1855, 
was  a  most  agreeable  one.  Mr.  Hodges  was  highly 


skilled  in  all  the  departments  of  the  law,  but  was  at 
that  time  somewhat  out  of  health,  so  that  we  did 
not  see  him  constantly,  but  Leverett  Saltonstall  was 
one  of  the  most  charming,  honorable,  and  high-toned 
men  that  I  have  ever  known.  He  was  justly  proud 
of  his  most  distinguished  ancestry,  running  far  back 
to  colonial  days,  and  first  represented  on  the  Har- 
vard College  catalogue  by  Doctor  Henry  Saltonstall 
in  the  first  class  of  1642,  who  received  his  medical 
degree  at  Padua  in  1649,  and  became  a  Fellow  of 
New  College,  Oxford,  in  1650.  He  was  of  a  high- 
strung  and  nervous  temperament,  which  made  the 
trial  of  causes  (in  which,  if  he  had  continued  in  them, 
he  would  have  had  great  success)  a  very  severe  strain 
upon  him,  although  then  he  was  very  young  at  the 
bar,  but  it  was  a  great  privilege  to  be  associated  and 
in  daily  contact  with  him,  and  I  have  always  looked 
back  upon  that  year's  experience  with  him  with  the 
greatest  satisfaction. 

It  was  while  with  him  that  I  had  my  first  case  and 
earned  my  first  fee,  which  has  always  afforded  me 
great  pleasure  to  recall.  We  were  sitting  in  the 
office  together,  one  cold  winter's  day,  when  two 
rugged  farmers  from  Vermont  came  in  with  a  case, 
which  they  briefly  stated  to  Saltonstall.  They  had 
each  had  a  carload  of  potatoes  come  down  by  rail- 
road from  Vermont,  and  they  were  found  to  be  com- 
pletely frozen  on  arrival,  and  the  farmers  had  brought 
an  action  against  the  railroad  company  for  the  value 
of  the  potatoes  so  destroyed.  The  question  was 


[101] 

whether  it  was  by  the  act  of  God  or  by  the  negligence 
of  the  railroad  company  that  they  had  been  frozen. 
Certainly  the  act  of  God  was  the  immediate  cause  in 
creating  or  permitting  the  extreme  frost,  but  behind 
that  was  the  negligence  of  the  railroad  company, 
which  should  have  protected  the  potatoes  more  per- 
fectly. It  was  rather  a  small  affair,  and  Mr.  Sal  ton- 
stall  hardly  thought  the  case  was  up  to  his  personal 
position  and  rank  at  the  bar,  but  he  turned  them 
over  to  me,  saying:  "Here  is  Choate.  Perhaps  he 
will  take  it."  As  I  had  never  had  a  case  I  was  very 
glad  to  do  so.  It  seemed  that  the  evidence  was  to 
be  taken  before  a  commissioner  in  Boston  on  the 
second  day  after,  which  would  give  an  intervening 
day  for  preparation,  and  I  very  gladly  undertook  the 
job.  It  so  happened  that  Mr.  Rufus  Choate  at  that 
time  was  laid  up  with  a  lame  knee,  but  was  driving 
out  every  day,  and  on  the  following  day  he  happened 
to  call  at  the  office  for  me  to  drive  with  him  through 
Brookline,  and  so  we  spent  an  hour  together  and  I 
told  him  about  my  first  case.  He  was  very  much 
delighted  at  the  idea,  and  gave  me  quite  a  lot  of  ad- 
vice about  cross-examination  of  witnesses,  in  which 
he  was  a  wonderful  adept,  so  that  I  went  the  next 
day  with  the  two  farmers  before  the  commissioner 
and  spent  the  whole  day  in  taking  the  evidence, 
which  I  thought  would  enable  them  to  establish  suc- 
cessfully the  proposition  before  a  country  jury,  at 
any  rate,  that  the  loss  of  the  potatoes  was  wholly 
due  to  the  negligence  of  the  railroad  company,  and 


[   102] 

that  the  act  of  God  had  nothing  to  do  with  it.  On 
our  return  to  the  office  the  farmers  raised  the  ques- 
tion of  my  fee — what  it  would  be.  Well,  I  had  never 
had  a  fee,  and  I  had  no  means  of  ascertaining  the 
value  of  my  services,  which  I  thought  were  consid- 
erable, and  I  said  to  them:  "Well,  it  has  taken  all 
day.  It  seems  to  be  a  matter  of  some  importance 
to  you.  I  wish  to  be  entirely  reasonable,  and  I 
should  think  that  three  dollars  would  be  about 
right." 

"Well,"  they  said,  "we  talked  that  matter  over 
on  the  way  down  from  Vermont,  and  we  kinder 
thought  that  there  were  two  cases,  two  carloads  of 
potatoes,  and  that  a  dollar  a  case,  a  dollar  a  load, 
would  be  about  right."  Not  wishing  to  have  a  con- 
test over  my  first  fee,  I  gladly  accepted  it,  and  they 
handed  me  two  of  the  little  gold  dollars  that  were 
current  at  that  time.  One  of  them  I  gave  to  my 
friend  and  classmate,  Darwin  Erastus  Ware,  who, 
like  myself,  had  never  had  a  fee,  and  I  must  have 
spent  the  other,  but  the  romance  of  it  was  that  forty- 
five  years  afterwards,  after  Ware  had  died,  his  widow, 
looking  over  his  papers,  found  something  wrapped 
up  in  paper,  and  marked  on  the  outside,  "Half  of 
Joe  Choate's  first  fee,"  which  she  very  kindly  sent 
to  my  daughter,  who  has  since  worn  it  as  a  charm 
upon  her  watch-guard.  But  this,  my  first  experience 
in  fees,  taught  me  to  be  forever  after  very  moderate 
in  all  that  matter. 

After  going  through  with  the  usual  examination 


for  admission  I  was  enrolled  in  the  Massachusetts 
bar  in  October,  1855,  and  although  I  have  never 
practised  in  that  State,  I  have  always  regarded  it  as 
a  great  privilege  from  that  day  to  this  to  have  been 
a  member  of  the  Massachusetts  bar. 

Having  got  ready  for  the  practice  of  my  profession 
and,  as  I  supposed,  being  qualified  to  undertake  any 
service  in  it,  however  intricate  and  difficult — a  young 
lawyer  is  never  so  good  as  those  just  admitted  to  the 
bar  imagine  themselves  to  be — William  and  I  con- 
cluded that  before  determining  where  to  settle  we 
should  make  a  tour  of  the  Western  country  to  see 
what  the  prospects  of  young  professional  men  were 
in  the  various  cities  of  the  West.  The  extreme  West 
then  occupied,  was  bounded  by  the  Mississippi  River, 
for  when  we  got  to  Davenport,  in  Iowa,  the  railroad 
went  no  farther;  but  Cook  and  Sargent,  the  bankers 
there  to  whom  we  had  letters,  kindly  said  that  they 
were  building  a  new  road  beyond  the  river,  which 
already  had  reached  Cedar  Rapids,  and  they  were 
running  construction  trains  on  it,  and  that  they 
would  give  us  a  ride  on  one  of  these  so  that  we  could 
say  that  we  had  reached  the  farthest  possible  point 
West,  which  we  gladly  accepted.  We  did  visit  many 
of  the  principal  cities,  but  to  our  primitive  minds, 
accustomed  only  to  the  comparatively  finished  East, 
everything  seemed  very  crude  and  rough,  and  we 
found  that  either  we  were  not  ready  for  the  West, 
or  the  West  was  not  ready  for  us,  although  I  am 
satisfied  that,  if  we  had  concluded  to  remain  any- 


[  I04] 

where  in  that  region,  we  should  have  soon  got  used 
to  it,  and  growing  up  with  some  young  community 
would  have  attained  similar  positions  to  those  which 
we  afterwards  reached  nearer  home. 

Chicago,  I  remember,  seemed  to  us  to  be  a  very 
unsatisfactory  place.  It  had  ceased  to  be  the  "dirty 
little  dog-hole/'  which  Judge  Parker  had  described 
it  to  us  at  the  Law  School  to  have  been,  when  he 
first  reached  it  some  twenty  or  thirty  years  before. 
It  had  all  the  appearance  of  a  great  city  yet  to  be, 
but  it  was  still  in  its  infancy.  I  remember  that  the 
sidewalks  were  of  plank,  and  sometimes  as  we  walked 
upon  them  the  muddy  water  spurted  up  between  the 
planks. 

We  were  not  attracted  by  the  methods  of  the  courts 
and  bar  in  the  cities  which  we  visited.  At  one  then 
frontier  town  we  heard  that  the  supreme  court  was 
in  session,  and,  as  our  wont  was,  made  haste  to  visit 
it.  The  administration  of  justice  seemed  to  be  going 
on  all  right.  The  jury  were  in  their  places,  the  wit- 
ness on  the  stand  was  being  examined  or  cross- 
examined  by  the  lawyer,  and  the  bar  was  reasonably 
full  with  something  of  an  audience  on  the  outer  circle 
of  the  court-room,  but  there  did  not  appear  to  be 
any  judge.  A  close  inspection,  however,  soon  re- 
vealed the  soles  of  a  pair  of  slippers  on  the  bench, 
and  the  judge  was  reclining  behind  them,  doubtless 
taking  in  all  the  evidence  and  conducting  the  case 
with  the  same  authority,  but  with  much  less  dignity 
than  we  had  been  accustomed  to  see  in  the  courts 


of  Massachusetts,  especially  in  Boston;  and  so  we 
very  easily  made  up  our  minds  to  seek  our  fortunes 
nearer  home,  William,  who  was  much  more  of  a 
home-body  than  I,  to  return  to  Salem. 


VII 
EARLY  DAYS   IN  NEW  YORK 

I  had  long  been  fascinated  with  the  idea  of  life 
in  New  York,  and  was  convinced  that  the  biggest 
place  offered  the  best  possible  chance  for  a  young 
lawyer.  I  had  been  there  once  before,  in  1851,  on 
a  visit,  and  I  remember  that  the  trains  from  Boston 
on  that  occasion  stopped  at  Forty-second  Street,  and 
individual  cars  were  dragged  by  horses  from  there 
down  to  Canal  Street,  and  discharged  their  passen- 
gers who  were  going  farther.  I  knew  almost  nobody 
in  the  great  city.  A  graduate  of  the  Harvard  Law 
School  nowadays  coming  to  New  York  would  find 
thousands  of  New  Englanders  here,  and  among  them 
hundreds  of  his  personal  acquaintances,  but  at  that 
time  it  was  a  comparatively  rare  thing  for  emigrants 
from  New  England  to  settle  here,  especially  edu- 
cated men,  and  I  do  not  think  that  there  were  more 
than  twenty-five  Harvard  graduates  then  residing 
in  this  city.  I  brought  with  me  one  letter  of  intro- 
duction, however,  which  proved  to  be  an  opening 
wedge  for  my  professional  career.  It  was  from  Rufus 
Choate,  who  took  quite  an  interest  in  my  fortunes, 
and  addressed  to  Mr.  William  M.  Evarts,  and  read 
as  follows: 

[106] 


"BOSTON,  24  Sept.  1855. 
"Mr  DEAR  MR.  EVARTS 

"I  beg  to  incur  one  other  obligation  to  you  by 
introducing  the  bearer  my  friend  and  kinsman  to 
your  kindness. 

"He  is  just  admitted  to  our  bar,  was  graduated 
at  Cambridge  with  a  very  high  reputation  for  schol- 
arship and  all  worth,  and  comes  to  the  practice  of 
the  law,  I  think,  with  extraordinary  promise.  He 
has  decided  to  enroll  himself  among  the  brave  and 
magnanimous  of  your  bar,  with  a  courage  not  un- 
warranted by  his  talents,  character,  ambition  and 
power  of  labor.  There  is  no  young  man  whom  I 
love  better,  or  from  whom  I  hope  more  or  as  much, 
and  if  you  can  do  anything  to  smooth  the  way  to 
his  first  steps  the  kindness  will  be  most  seasonable 
and  will  yield  all  sorts  of  good  fruits. 

"  Most  truly 
'Your  servant  and  friend 

"Rums  CHOATE." 

This,  certainly,  was  a  very  emphatic  letter  and 
manifested  wonderful  confidence  and  affection  on 
the  part  of  the  writer,  and  I  had  to  do  my  best  to 
live  up  to  it  in  all  the  after-years. 

Mr.  Evarts  had  not  at  that  time  attained  the 
zenith  of  his  great  fame,  for  he  was  then  only  thirty- 
seven  years  old,  but  he  and  his  firm  of  Butler,  Evarts 
and  Southmayd  were  already  in  the  front  rank  of 
the  profession,  and,  perhaps,  the  busiest  office  in 


[loS] 

New  York,  with  a  remarkable  clientage.  He  rose 
very  rapidly  to  the  leadership  of  the  American  bar, 
and  was  engaged  in  all  the  greatest  causes  of  his 
time,  before  entering  public  life  and  holding  the  great 
offices  of  attorney-general,  secretary  of  state,  and 
senator.  He  received  me  very  warmly,  but  it  was 
several  months  before  he  could  make  a  place  for 
me  in  his  office.  During  this  time  I  had  quite  an 
opportunity  to  study  New  York  and  to  become 
acquainted  with  the  habits  of  life  there,  which  were 
so  different  from  the  New  England  ways,  and  in 
the  meantime,  in  the  offices  of  my  classmates, 
Waring  and  Norris,  and  of  James  Carter,  I  was 
studying  up  the  code  and  learning  something  about 
practice. 

New  York  was  a  very  different  city  from  what  it 
is  to-day.  Instead  of  being  Greater  New  York, 
with  what  the  papers  to-day  say  to  be  a  population 
of  five  and  a  half  millions,  it  was  simply  the  Island 
of  Manhattan,  with  a  population  of  five  hundred 
thousand  only,  and  Brooklyn  and  the  other  boroughs, 
instead  of  being  accessible  by  tubes  in  a  few  minutes, 
seemed  almost  as  far  away  as  Boston.  There  was 
no  congestion  and  no  rush  anywhere.  I  remember 
that  shortly  afterwards,  when  the  Sixth  Avenue  rail- 
road with  its  horse-cars  was  opened  as  far  as  Forty- 
second  Street,  which  was  then  the  upper  limit  of  the 
city,  it  was  thought  that  the  final  achievement  of 
rapid  transit  had  been  reached.  You  could  get  into 
their  cars  at  the  Astor  House  and  reach  Forty-second 


WILLIAM  M.  EVARTS. 

The  famous  New  York  lawyer,  Attorney-General,  Secretary  of  State,  and  United 
States  Senator.  He  invited  J.  H.  C.  to  become  junior  partner  in  the  firm  of 
Evarts  and  Southmayd  in  1859,  and  the  relationship  then  begun  was  only  dis- 
solved by  Mr.  Evarts'*  death.  This  portrait,  painted  by  William  M.  Hunt  in 
the  seventies,  shows  Mr.  Evarts  in  the  prime  of  life. 


I  • 
rn  eric  an 

his 

he  great 

•te,  and 

was 


come 
tiwt*.  **{ 

' 
ny    classmtr**, 

rter,    I    was 
>mething  about 


red 

Us, 
>  few  rr 

I  remember 
h  Avenue  rail- 

.8THAV3  .M  M4UJIW 

L^jiriU  fans  ,»JBJ8  lo  \i£mx>Z  .IsiansO-ysmowA  .IS^WB!  JnoY  ws'*-!  juomtl 
lo  nnfl  adj  ni  isnlisq  loiaoi  scaossd  oi  .6  .H  .1.  Lsiivni  »Ii     .iciias 
-eib  /(no  SBW  nugxJ  usrii  qirfzcohsbi  srfj  bnc  ,9;8l  ni  bxsmJjuo8  bns 
ni  j.mH  .M  meilliW  ^d  bsJnisq  »>Uinoq  sUT    .rijgsb  I'ijisva  .iM  x 
-rfil  lo  smhq  srf?  ft!  en*v3   iM  »wori»  .esbn 


[  109] 

Street  in  forty  minutes,  which  was  thought  to  be 
wonderful. 

My  father  said  to  me,  when  I  left  home,  "I  sup- 
pose that  you  will  want  some  money,"  and  kindly 
offered  to  furnish  me  with  what  I  needed,  and  mea- 
suring the  probable  cost  by  the  standard  that  I  had 
known  in  Salem  and  Cambridge,  and  not  realizing 
that  New  York  even  then  was  a  more  expensive  place, 
I  said  to  him  that  I  thought  that  forty  dollars  a 
month  would  be  ample,  which  I  duly  received.  I 
found  it  a  very  close  cut,  but  was  too  proud  to  ask 
for  more,  so  I  found  a  boarding-place  in  which  my 
classmate,  Addison  Brown,  was  already  established, 
at  the  corner  of  Bleecker  Street  and  Thomson  Street, 
which  had  previously  been  the  residence  of  General 
Scott.  After  he  left  it  several  stories  had  been 
added,  and  one  or  two  adjoining  houses  taken  in,  so 
that  it  was  quite  a  caravansary.  I  took  a  room  on 
the  fourth  floor,  for  which  I  had  to  pay  five  dollars 
a  week,  for  board  and  room.  The  room  was  so 
small,  however,  that  when  I  invited  anybody  to 
come  in  I  had  to  stand  on  the  outside,  so  I  soon 
ventured  upon  a  larger  room  on  the  top  floor  at  five 
dollars  and  a  half  a  week  for  room  and  board,  and 
made  myself  very  comfortable,  and  the  walk  morn- 
ing and  evening  from  Bleecker  to  Wall  Street  gave 
me  just  a  comfortable  amount  of  exercise. 

The  social  world  of  the  city  began  to  open  to  me 
in  various  directions,  although  in  all  it  was  very 
simple  and  unpretentious.  My  earliest  acquain- 


[no] 

tances  were  with  the  Quakers,  whose  welcome  was 
exceedingly  cordial,  and  I  have  cherished  the  recol- 
lection of  it  at  a  very  high  value  from  that  day  to 
this.  The  Gibbonses,  the  Hoppers,  and  the  Hay- 
docks  were  very  remarkable  and  interesting  people. 

Mrs.  Abby  Hopper  Gibbons  was  a  wonderful 
woman  with  a  heart  as  strong  and  warm  as  her  head 
was  clear.  She  was  engaged  in  many  charities,  and 
exerted  a  wide  and  very  powerful  influence  in  the 
city;  and  her  brother,  John  Hopper  (they  were  chil- 
dren of  the  famous  Quaker,  Isaac  T.  Hopper),  was  a 
miracle  of  fun  and  drollery,  and  at  the  same  time  a 
marvel  of  devoted  loyalty  and  affection,  and  he  did 
a  vast  deal  to  make  my  early  days  in  New  York 
extremely  enjoyable.  He  was  a  lawyer,  besides 
being  the  agent  of  the  New  England  Life  Insurance 
Company,  and  was  the  soul  of  hospitality.  He  was 
noted  for  his  wit  and  sprightliness,  from  boyhood  in 
Philadelphia  and  all  his  life  in  New  York. 

Philadelphia  must  have  been  a  very  quiet  place 
at  that  time,  for  after  his  father  had  moved  to  New 
York,  when  he  was  about  twelve  years  old,  complaint 
was  made  to  the  mayor  of  the  city  by  two  venerable 
spinsters,  sisters  who  dwelt  together  in  one  of  the 
Philadelphia  houses,  that  mysterious  visitations  were 
being  made  to  them  at  night,  which  they  could  not 
possibly  account  for.  It  seems  that  knowing  all 
about  them,  on  a  return  to  the  city  of  Brotherly 
Love,  he  had  carefully  watched  their  habits  and  dis- 
covered at  just  about  what  time  they  were  going  to 


[Ill] 

bed,  and  as  their  light  was  put  out  the  window-sash 
of  the  room  in  which  they  slept  together  was  raised 
by  no  •  visible  hands,  to  their  very  great  terror. 
When  this  had  happened  for  three  nights  in  succes- 
sion they  could  stand  it  no  longer  and  complained 
to  the  chief  magistrate,  who  replied:  "Oh,  ladies, 
you  must  not  be  frightened.  I  think  John  Hopper 
must  have  returned  to  town." 

I  remember  that  Carter,  Thayer,  and  I  used  to 
assemble  at  his  house  very  often  on  Saturday  nights, 
where  he  treated  us  most  royally.  His  wife  was  a 
woman  of  great  beauty  and  of  splendid  character, 
who  would  have  graced  any  station  in  life.  She  was 
the  daughter  of  William  Henry  de  Wolfe,  one  of  the 
famous  family  of  that  name  at  Bristol,  Rhode  Island, 
and  the  young  couple  had  made  a  runaway  match. 
The  indignant  father  had  pursued  them,  but  over- 
took them  too  late  to  prevent  the  marriage,  and  con- 
tented himself  with  dealing  John  a  violent  blow;  but 
John  survived  that,  and  lived  to  take  into  his  own 
house  his  father-in-law  with  his  wife  and  invalid 
daughter,  and  Mr.  de  Wolfe  finally  died  in  his  arms. 
They  had  been  for  twelve  years  without  children, 
when,  to  the  surprise  and  delight  of  everybody  who 
knew  them,  a  fine  son  appeared  in  the  person  of  De 
Wolfe  Hopper,  now  such  a  distinguished  comedian, 
well  known  throughout  the  United  States.  John  was 
so  wild  with  joy  at  the  idea  of  being  a  father  that  he 
could  hardly  contain  himself,  and  when  the  boy  was 
about  a  week  old  one  summer  morning,  finding  him 


[112] 

lying  naked  on  the  bed,  just  as  his  nurse  had  given 
him  his  bath,  and  wishing  the  whole  world  to  partic- 
ipate in  his  happiness,  he  took  him  by  the  leg  and 
held  him  out  of  the  window.  Until  the  boy  grew 
old  enough  to  run  about  for  himself  he  used  to  carry 
him  all  over  the  city  every  fine  day,  making  a  seat 
for  him  upon  his  cane  with  the  crook  of  his  elbow, 
and  in  that  way  they  wandered  from  Forty-second 
Street  to  the  Battery  almost  daily.  One  day  he 
came  near  losing  the  boy,  for,  entering  Madison 
Square  with  him  on  his  arm  (a  square  which  at  that 
time  was  very  greatly  given  up  to  nurses  and  chil- 
dren) he  went  about  among  them,  exclaiming:  "See 
what  a  fine  boy  I  have  found.  Who's  lost  a  boy  ?" 
Oddly  enough,  there  was  a  woman  there  who  had 
recently  lost  a  baby,  and  was  crazy  from  the  effects 
of  her  affliction,  and  hearing  this  outcry  she  seized 
the  baby  and  claimed  it  for  her  own,  and  John  had 
great  difficulty  with  the  aid  of  police  in  rescuing  him- 
self and  the  child  from  her  attack.  As  the  boy  grew 
up  he  thought  of  nothing  but  life  upon  the  stage, 
and  I  have  always  thought  that  all  of  his  comic 
faculty  came  to  him  by  heredity  from  his  father. 

In  fact,  his  father  had  always  been  a  devotee  of 
the  theatre  in  spite  of  his  Quaker  surroundings. 
When  the  celebrated  Fanny  Kemble  made  her  first 
appearance  in  New  York  he  became  very  much  fas- 
cinated by  her,  and  was  a  constant  attendant  upon 
her  performances.  He  would  exchange  his  shad- 
belly  Quaker  coat  for  a  world's  people  jacket  at  the 


["3] 

shop  of  an  apothecary,  in  the  neighborhood  of  the 
theatre,  and  buy  a  ticket  to  the  shilling  gallery.  One 
night  his  father  on  his  return  home  caught  him  going 
up-stairs  at  midnight,  shoes  in  hand,  and  took  him 
to  task,  and  the  following  colloquy  took  place:  "John, 
where  has  thee  been?"  Now  John  was  always 
truthful;  under  every  circumstance  you  could  de- 
pend upon  his  telling  the  truth,  so  he  said:  "To  the 
theatre,  father."  The  old  gentleman  was  very  much 
shocked.  "What  theatre  was  it,  and  whom  did  thee 
see  ? "  John  gave  the  name  of  the  theatre  and  the 
name  of  the  famous  actress,  which  disgusted  his 
father  still  further,  and  he  exclaimed:  "John,  I  hope 
this  is  the  first  time  thee  has  been  to  see  her/'  And 
John  replied:  "No,  father.  It  is  the  sixty-third 
time."  The  old  gentleman  was  so  overwhelmed  that 
he  took  to  his  bed  again  and  inflicted  no  chastisement. 
Nothing  could  be  more  simple  and  almost  idyllic 
than  the  life  that  these  Quakers  led,  and  the  house 
of  Mrs.  Gibbons  was  a  great  resort  of  abolitionists 
and  extreme  antislavery  people  from  all  parts  of  the 
land,  as  it  was  one  of  the  stations  of  the  underground 
railroad  by  which  fugitive  slaves  found  their  way 
from  the  South  to  Canada.  I  have  dined  with  that 
family  in  company  with  William  Lloyd  Garrison,  and 
sitting  at  the  table  with  us  was  a  jet  black  negro  who 
was  on  his  way  to  freedom.  The  Haydocks,  too, 
were  splendid  people,  and  were  the  progenitors  of  the 
Hallowells,  who  have  since  held  such  a  distinguished 
place  in  Boston.  Lucretia  Mott,  the  celebrated  fe- 


male  preacher  of  that  day,  was  also  a  frequent  guest, 
and  I  have  been  to  hear  her  preach  at  the  Quaker 
meeting-house,  which  still  stands  in  East  Fifteenth 
Street. 

But  I  was  not  confined  to  Quakerdom,  for  I  rapidly 
met  many  delightful  acquaintances  in  the  city.  At 
the  houses  of  the  leaders  of  the  bar,  like  Daniel  Lord, 
and  Mr.  Evarts,  and  others,  I  found  warm  friends, 
and  I  remember  at  a  reception  at  Mr.  Lord's  being 
introduced  to  ex-President  Martin  Van  Buren  and 
his  attorney-general,  Benjamin  F.  Butler,  who  both 
died  within  a  few  months  afterwards.  The  families 
of  Hamilton  Fish,  and  Mrs.  Fish's  sister,  Mrs.  Grif- 
fin, and  George  L.  Schuyler,  and  John  Jay,  and 
Daniel  Leroy  were  among  my  earliest  friends  in  New 
York. 

At  the  house  of  Mr.  Jay,  at  Bedford,  I  always 
found  a  most  cordial  welcome  from  him  and  his  de- 
lightful family.  He  retained  unchanged  the  resi- 
dence of  his  grandfather,  the  first  chief  justice  of  the 
United  States,  whose  name  he  bore,  and  there  many 
fascinating  historical  reminiscences  were  recalled  by 
him.  The  grandson,  John  Jay,  was  in  all  respects 
as  high-toned  and  patriotic  as  his  grandfather,  and 
delighted  in  nothing  so  much  as  in  public  service. 
He  was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  Union  League  Club, 
and  intensely  interested  in  all  measures  of  reform 
that  came  up  at  that  exciting  period,  which  led  to 
the  club's  formation,  and  his  public  services  after- 
wards as  minister  to  Austria  were  of  great  value. 


["Si 

Gouverneur  Morris  was  an  eccentric  character,  but 
a  man  of  very  noble  nature,  as  his  acts  testified,  and 
he,  too,  loved  to  indulge  in  memories  of  the  early  days 
of  the  republic.  I  had  always  supposed  that  all  the 
public  men  of  the  revolutionary  period  were  spotless 
patriots,  and  worthy  of  all  praise,  but  I  have  a  sus- 
picion that  the  world  has  progressed  in  every  gen- 
eration, for  Mr.  Morris  told  me  that  in  his  boyhood 
his  father,  of  the  same  name,  who  was  our  minister 
at  Paris  during  the  French  Revolution  and  the  days 
of  the  Terror,  used  to  take  him  with  him  in  his  yearly 
drives  from  Morrisania  to  Bedford  to  visit  the  chief 
justice,  and  there  he  overheard  their  conversation, 
as  they  dwelt  upon  their  early  experiences  at  the  time 
of  the  formation  of  the  government,  and  had  much  to 
say  about  the  performances  of  the  "damned  rascals 
of  the  first  Congress,"  as  they  called  them. 

I  think  that  it  would  now  be  hard  to  find  the  spot 
at  Mott  Haven  where  stood  the  hospitable  mansion 
of  Gouverneur  Morris,  which  I  often  visited.  It  was 
a  somewhat  sequestered  rural  retreat  on  the  banks 
of  the  Kills,  where  it  was  quite  practicable  at  that 
time  to  fish,  but  now  the  whole  region  has  become  a 
part  of  the  city,  compactly  built  and  without  the 
possibility  of  discovering  the  remains  of  the  Morris 
mansion.  I  remember  that  it  contained  in  one  of 
the  parlors  a  complete  set  of  furniture  which  had 
come  from  the  Tuileries,  where  it  had  been  used  by 
Louis  XVI  and  Marie  Antoinette,  and  was  justly 
regarded  as  a  most  interesting  treasure. 


The  marriage  of  Mr.  Morris's  father,  I  believe, 
had  not  suited  his  relatives  of  the  Morris  family,  who 
had  hoped  to  be  his  heirs,  as  he  had  long  remained  a 
bachelor,  and  he  told  me  that,  when  they  assembled 
to  celebrate  his  birth,  the  health  of  the  new-born 
child  was  proposed  under  the  name  of  Kutusoff,  who 
had  at  that  time  become  a  distinguished  Russian 
general  in  the  wars  of  Napoleon,  and  as  commander- 
in-chief  of  the  First  Corps  of  the  Russian  army  against 
the  French  had  gained  a  victory,  and  afterwards 
commanded  the  allied  army  under  the  Emperor 
Alexander  at  Austerlitz. 

Mr.  George  L.  Schuyler  and  his  noble  wife,  a 
granddaughter  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  were  among 
the  most  delightful  people  that  I  have  ever  known. 
They  were  both  of  really  famous  historical  descent, 
and  their  home  was  an  extremely  attractive  and 
happy  one.  Mr.  Schuyler  was  the  most  genial  and 
delightful  of  men,  never  assuming  anything  or  taking 
on  airs  by  reason  of  his  illustrious  pedigree  and  alli- 
ance, and  always  extremely  affable  and  interesting. 
He  told  me  that  he  had  shaken  hands  with  every 
President  except  George  Washington.  His  father, 
who  had  been  a  member  of  Congress,  and  was  the 
son  of  General  Philip  Schuyler,  took  George,  when  he 
was  about  ten  years  old,  on  a  visit  to  Quincy  to  call 
upon  John  Adams,  and  shortly  afterwards  to  Mon- 
ticello  to  call  upon  Thomas  Jefferson,  to  be  presented 
to  those  famous  founders  of  the  Republic,  both  of 
whom  shortly  afterwards  died  on  the  same  day,  on 


the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  signing  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  which  one  of  them  had  drawn, 
and  the  other  had  done  all  he  could  to  promote. 
This  was  one  of  the  most  striking  historical  coin- 
cidences ever  known,  for  in  those  days,  so  long  be- 
fore the  era  of  travel  by  steam  and  communication 
by  telegraph,  Monticello  and  Quincy  were  as  far 
apart  as  New  York  and  China  are  to-day,  and  al- 
though John  Adams  with  almost  his  dying  breath  had 
said,  "Thomas  Jefferson  still  lives,"  it  was  not  so,  for 
they  died  together  on  the  same  Fourth  of  July. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Schuyler  exercised  a  most  graceful 
hospitality,  especially  avoiding  all  ostentation  or  dis- 
play, but  giving  most  agreeable  dinners,  for  one  of 
his  favorite  maxims  was  that  eight  was  the  ideal 
number  for  a  dinner-party,  so  that  all  the  company 
at  table  could  take  part  in  all  the  conversation. 
These  occasions  were  very  happy  ones  to  remember. 
He  lived  to  a  green  old  age,  always  taking  a  warm 
interest  in  public  affairs,  and  transmitting  to  his  chil- 
dren not  only  the  memory  of  his  unspotted  life,  but 
a  taste  for  public  service  of  the  highest  character. 

His  son  Philip  took  part  in  the  Civil  War  on  the 
staff  of  General  Wool,  and  his  daughter,  Miss  Louisa 
Lee  Schuyler,  has  exercised  a  great  and  most  whole- 
some influence  in  the  promotion  of  many  measures 
that  tended  to  advance  the  welfare  of  the  community. 
I  remember  taking  part  with  her  in  her  splendid  cru- 
sade for  the  rescue  of  the  dependent  insane  of  the 
State  from  the  prisons  and  poorhouses  of  counties 


and  towns,  and  transferring  them  to  the  care  of  the 
State  itself,  which  has  provided  homes  of  a  permanent 
character  for  them  in  all  respects  suitable  for  their 
condition.  It  was  a  fight  of  many  years  against  all 
sorts  of  corrupt  influences,  and  she  led  the  way  most 
triumphantly  from  beginning  to  end.  In  many  other 
services  she  has  shown  a  tact  and  power  worthy  of 
her  distinguished  progenitors,  so  that  when  Columbia 
University,  in  1914,  conferred  upon  her  the  rare  honor 
of  a  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws  it  was  universally  re- 
garded as  a  just  recognition  of  her  work  and  character. 
******** 
But  to  return  to  the  law.  In  the  early  part  of  1856 
Mr.  Evarts  kindly  invited  me  to  come  into  his  office, 
and  made  a  seat  for  me  in  his  own  room,  and  there  I 
soon  got  to  be  very  busy.  As  a  prominent  Bachelor 
of  Laws  of  Harvard  University  and  a  member  of  the 
Massachusetts  bar,  I  had  looked  forward,  of  course, 
to  entering  immediately  upon  a  career  in  the  courts, 
but  nothing  could  be  further  from  the  actual  fact. 
The  world  does  not  need  the  counsel  of  boys,  either 
in  court  or  out,  but  I  was  determined,  if  possible,  to 
make  myself  indispensable  in  that  office,  and  an  easy 
way  soon  opened,  for  they  found  out  that  I  could 
write  a  good  hand,  and  could  keep  it  up  at  the  rate 
of  twelve  folios  an  hour  for  ten  hours  a  day.  There 
were  no  stenographers,  and  only  an  ancient  scrivener, 
a  regular  retainer  of  the  office,  and  another  casual 
friend  of  his  who  was  called  in  occasionally,  but  they 
could  not  keep  up  with  the  rush  of  work.  Mr.  But- 


ler  and  Mr.  Southmayd  used  to  draw  tremendously 
long  papers,  and  many  of  them  came  into  my  hands 
to  copy,  which  I  did  with  the  greatest  avidity,  learn- 
ing a  great  deal  all  the  time  as  to  the  preparation  of 
papers;  and  many  a  long  document  will  be  found  in 
my  handwriting  in  the  county  clerk's  office  and  the 
surrogate's  court,  and  the  register  of  deeds  of  that 
day.  And  so  I  gradually  became  quite  necessary. 

I  attended  courts  also  at  the  call  of  the  calendar, 
and  can  recall  the  interesting  habits  of  the  bar  at  that 
time.  The  leaders  of  the  bar  always  appeared  in 
dress  suits  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  the  im- 
perturbable George  Wood,  who  was  the  most  famous 
of  the  chancery  lawyers,  as  some,  I  think,  were  then 
called,  and  who  was  all  brain,  made  long  arguments 
with  so  little  emotion  or  manifestation  of  feeling  that 
a  story  was  told  of  him  that  always  impressed  me 
very  much,  for  it  was  said  that  in  an  important  case 
where  he  had  to  make  a  special  effort,  one  of  the 
tails  of  his  dress  coat,  when  he  rose  to  speak,  rested 
upon  the  table  at  which  he  had  sat,  and  there  it  re- 
mained undisturbed  during  the  whole  of  his  argu- 
ment of  two  hours,  to  the  great  entertainment  of 
all  the  bystanders. 

The  judges  of  the  courts  were  all  highly  respecta- 
ble, but  they  were  very  few  in  number,  and  they  re- 
ceived very  small  salaries,  as  compared  with  those 
now  paid.  I  think  that  in  the  Supreme  Court  there 
were  but  three  judges,  who  held  jury  terms  and  equity 
terms,  and  then  sat  together  in  the  general  term  on 


appeal.  The  superior  court  held  a  very  high  place 
and  had  a  very  large  commercial  business,  and  there 
were,  I  think,  three  or  four  judges  there,  consisting 
of  some  famous  men  like  Chief  Justice  Oakley  and 
Judge  Duer,  who  would  have  been  a  credit  to  any 
tribunal  anywhere.  To  show  how  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment has  gained  upon  the  States  until  almost  the 
entire  power  of  the  nation  has  been  concentrated  at 
Washington,  there  was  only  one  judge  of  the  federal 
court  in  New  York  at  that  time,  the  Honorable 
Samuel  R.  Betts,  and  there  was  hardly  business 
enough  for  him.  He  was  at  quite  an  advanced  age, 
and  often  took  naps  upon  the  bench,  so  that  the 
lawyers  before  him  had  to  raise  their  voices  to  a  very 
high  pitch  to  wake  him  up.  But  Judge  Samuel  Nel- 
son, who  was  one  of  the  greatest  lawyers  and  judges- 
I  ever  knew,  was  then  assigned  to  the  second  circuit, 
and  on  very  important  cases  he  would  come  and  sit 
with  Judge  Betts. 

And  now  how  changed  it  all  is  !  Some  ten  federal 
judges  holding  court  all  the  time  can  hardly  keep  up 
with  the  pressure  of  business,  and  when  the  courts 
open  in  October  many  branches  are  holding  separate 
terms,  and  there  is  now  a  bill  pending  in  Washington 
for  adding  two  new  judges  to  the  district.  In  those 
days  the  practice  in  the  federal  court  was  a  terra 
incognita  to  most  lawyers,  and  a  very  few  offices, 
of  which  ours  was  one,  had  any  business  there. 

The  scriveners,  with  whom  as  a  skilful  writer  I 
was  intimately  associated  in  my  early  days  in  the 


GAMALIEL  HODGES— 1766-1850. 

This  silhouette  of  Mr.  Choate's  grandfather  was  made  when  he  was  about  seventy 
years  of  age.  He  was  a  very  big  man,  over  six  feet  and  a  half  tall,  and  weighed 
over  three  hundred  pounds;  although  when  he  was  born  he  is  said  to  have  been 
so  small  that  be  was  put  in  a  silver  tankard  and  the  top  shut  down ! 


J«4ft 


ifH  place 

*H*MK»*   and  there 

sting 

and 

:en  a  o  any 

how  fh  ai  Gov- 

States  unti!  c  the 

is  been  concentrated  at 

:udge  of  the  federal 

-he  Honorable 

•icss 


e  would  come  ;uui  sit 


i  federal 

pup 

ourts 

eparate 

;ington 

In  those 


•tinsyaa  laoda  «sw  »d  nariw  afaam  eaw  »<k»lbn*!g  »9S£o£}  ul/  to 
<-|^f^8''w  bas  JFsJ  llsd  &  fans  J33^  xia  isvo  ,0*ra  gid  yisv  c  asw  sH    .3 
n^xJ  sv«4  oi  bis*  ti  »d  mod  SBW  ad  n'jrfw  dguotirie  t^aooq  bstbr.'ui 
lawob  fuda  qoj  sdl  bne  bicansi  isvlis  *  at  Juq  ss  • 

s  in  the 


[121] 

office,  were  an  interesting  lot,  most  of  them  Irishmen 
who  had  done  nothing  else  since  their  immigration. 
Samuel  L.  Montgomery,  the  scrivener  of  our  office, 
known  there  and  to  the  whole  profession  as  Sam,  was 
a  truly  interesting  character.  He  had  been  there  for 
untold  years,  and  had  married,  brought  up  one  fam- 
ily, and  had  lost  his  wife,  and  one  day  he  came  to 
Mr.  Evarts  and  said  that  he  was  going  to  be  married 
again.  Well,  they  congratulated  him,  the  heads  of 
the  office  were  much  pleased,  and  gave  him  a  vaca- 
tion of  two  weeks  for  his  honeymoon,  and  made  up 
a  nice  little  purse  for  him  to  take  the  journey  with 
his  wife.  After  the  appointed  time  he  returned  to 
the  office  in  finest  of  spirits,  and  this  conversation 
occurred  between  Mr.  Evarts  and  him:  "Well,  Sam, 
we  are  very  glad  to  see  you  back.  Did  you  have  a 
good  time?"  "Had  a  perfect  time.  Never  had 
such  a  good  time  in  my  life."  "Well,  where  did  you 
go?"  "Went  to  Saratoga,  Trenton  Falls,  Niagara 
and  back."  "  Did  you  have  time  enough  ?"  "  Plenty 
of  time."  "Money  enough?"  "Yes,  I  had  some 
left."  "Well,  how  did  your  wife  enjoy  it?"  Sam 
scratched  his  head.  "Well,"  said  he,  "the  fact  is, 
I  left  her  in  Brooklyn." 

The  other  casual  scrivener,  who  came  off  and  on 
when  there  was  extra  work,  was  named  Collins,  and 
one  day  when  he  had  grown  quite  old  he  came  to 
me  and  wanted  help  to  get  into  an  old  man's  home. 
"Well,"  said  I,  "Mr.  Collins,  you  don't  look  as 
though  you  needed  to  go  to  an  old  man's  home. 


[   122] 

You  look  in  fine  health  and  condition.  How  old 
are  you?"  "Well,  I  am  eighty-two.  I  think  it  is 
time  for  me  to  stop  work  and  go  into  an  old  man's 
home."  "I  wish,"  said  I,  "that  you  would  tell  me 
how  it  is  that  you  have  kept  in  such  splendid  condi- 
tion till  eighty-two,  for  I  should  like  to  get  there 
myself  in  as  good  shape  as  you  are."  "Well,"  said 
he,  "I  will  tell  you.  I  have  always  kept  married. 
I  am  on  my  fifth  wife  now."  So  I  gave  him  the  help 
he  wanted  for  so  worthy  an  object. 

I  had  always  had  in  mind  that  I  would  combine 
with  my  professional  life  as  much  attention  to  public 
services  as  was  compatible  with  it,  and  I  had  hardly 
been  in  the  office  six  months  before  the  great  cam- 
paign of  1856  came  on,  when  the  Republican  party 
was  formed,  and  made  Fremont  and  Dayton  its  can- 
didates to  run  against  Buchanan  and  Breckinridge. 
The  object  of  its  formation  was,  if  possible,  to  pre- 
vent the  further  extension  of  slavery,  which  had  been 
made  possible  by  the  legislation  in  Pierce's  adminis- 
tration, during  which  the  famous  Kansas-Nebraska 
Act  was  formed,  and  left  the  great  northwest  region 
possibly  open  to  the  introduction  of  slavery,  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise  of  1820  and  the  great  compromise 
acts  of  1850  having  been  thrown  to  the  winds.  Of 
course  I  joined  the  Republican  party,  and  remem- 
ber being  a  member  of  the  Rocky  Mountain  Cam- 
paign Club,  which  took  rooms  in  the  Stuyvesant  In- 
stitute on  Broadway  near  Eighth  Street,  not  far  from 
my  residence,  and  Charles  A.  Dana  and  John  J. 


[  I23] 

Townsend  and  other  men  of  distinction  in  later  years 
were  members.  I  remember  well  my  first  political 
speech  for  Fremont  and  Dayton  in  the  summer  of 
1856,  just  after  they  were  nominated.  It  was  made 
at  a  meeting  held  on  the  roof  of  our  boarding-house 
in  Bleecker  Street,  gotten  up  by  Judge  Brown  and 
E.  C.  Benedict,  long  since  known  as  Commodore 
Benedict,  the  friend  of  Grover  Cleveland.  We  as- 
sembled after  dinner,  and  I  made  the  principal  speech, 
which  seemed  to  entertain  and  satisfy  the  large  audi- 
ence consisting  of  inmates  of  the  house,  and  then 
later  before  the  election  I  made  a  still  more  impor- 
tant speech  at  Constitution  Hall,  corner  of  Thirty- 
fourth  Street  and  Eighth  Avenue.  Huge  placards 
were  set  up  in  the  vicinity,  representing  an  express- 
train,  with  General  Fremont  running  the  train  as  en- 
gineer, and  running  over  an  old  buck  that  lay  upon 
the  track  representing  Buchanan,  and  under  this  in 
great  capitals  was  a  notice  that  Joseph  H.  Choate 
and  others  would  address  the  meeting,  and  that  vic- 
tory was  certain.  It  was  a  very  good  meeting  in 
which  Mr.  Carter  and  the  Reverend  O.  B.  Frothing- 
ham  took  part,  giving  a  religious  aspect  to  the  affair. 
Some  fifty  years  afterwards  I  found  one  of  those  pla- 
cards in  overhauling  my  papers,  had  it  framed,  and 
sent  it  to  the  Union  League  Club  where,  I  believe, 
it  is  still  preserved  in  the  archives  as  showing  an 
important  step  in  the  history  of  the  Republican  party. 
I  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  John  Fremont  in 
Charles  Gould's  office  in  Wall  Street  before  the  elec- 


[  I24] 

tion,  and  was  impressed  with  the  idea  that  he  was 
a  very  light  character  and  contained  no  great  amount 
of  what  is  known  as  presidential  timber,  and  it  was 
probably  well  for  us  that  we  were  thoroughly  beaten. 
Nevertheless  the  campaign,  which  was  well  fought 
(for  after  all  Buchanan  was  a  minority  President,  and 
Fremont  had  a  million  and  a  half  of  votes  to  Buchan- 
an's eighteen  hundred  thousand),  paved  the  way  for 
the  triumphant  election  of  Lincoln  and  the  saving 
of  the  country  four  years  afterwards. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Hamilton  Fish  undoubtedly  occu- 
pied at  that  time  the  foremost  place  in  the  social 
world  of  New  York,  although  he  had  not  attained  to 
the  world-wide  distinction  that  he  afterwards  ac- 
quired in  his  eight  years'  service  with  President  Grant 
as  his  secretary  of  state.  Mrs.  Fish,  like  her  sister 
Mrs.  Griffin,  was  a  lady  of  great  charm,  and  they 
exercised  a  most  dignified  and  generous  hospitality 
entirely  free  from  the  extravagance  and  dissipation 
that  has  of  late  marked  what  is  called  society  in  New 
York  City.  I  regarded  it  as  a  very  great  honor  to 
be  invited  now  and  then  to  their  dinners,  where  I 
always  found  myself  among  the  best  people. 

A  very  early  admission  to  the  Century  Club  in 
1858  brought  me  into  relations  with  the  most  charm- 
ing circle  of  men.  The  Club  then  consisted  of  some- 
thing less  than  two  hundred  members,  of  whom  al- 
most all  the  original  members  of  the  club,  founded  in 
1846,  still  survived.  Time  was  not  so  pressing  then 
as  it  has  since  become,  and  comparative  leisure  pre- 


vailed  with  them  all,  so  that  not  only  on  Saturday 
nights,  but  on  almost  every  night  in  the  week,  ex- 
cept Sunday,  many  of  these  delightful  old  members 
were  present,  and  we  youngsters  sat  at  their  feet  in 
devout  admiration.  Such  men  as  Gulian  Crommelin 
Verplanck,  William  Cullen  Bryant,  Doctor  Bellows, 
the  two  Kembles,  Gouverneur  and  William,  Charles 
M.  Leupp,  Jonathan  Sturges,  John  H.  Gourlie,  and 
others  of  great  distinction,  including  many  artists 
like  Daniel  Huntington,  Charles  C.  Ingham,  Fred- 
erick E.  Church,  John  F.  Kensett,  and  others  of  their 
profession,  which  always  has  constituted  a  very 
prominent  element  in  the  club,  formed  such  a  group 
of  character  and  good  fame  as  can  hardly  be  found 
at  the  present  day  in  any  club  in  New  York,  I  think. 
It  was  an  immense  privilege  and,  in  fact,  the  com- 
pletion of  a  liberal  education  to  be  thrown  among 
such  men,  intercourse  with  whom  contrasted  very 
strongly  with  my  simple  and  secluded  life  at  Salem. 
The  Century  occupied  a  very  modest  building  in 
Fifteenth  Street.  There  was  no  cuisine,  and  the  only 
refreshments  on  ordinary  nights  consisted  of  oysters, 
which  we  cooked  ourselves  in  chafing-dishes,  and  a 
favorite  drink  was  what  was  called  a  Renwick,  in- 
vented and  introduced  by  Professor  Renwick  of 
Columbia  College,  containing  a  little  sprinkling  of 
Jamaica  rum.  Small  as  the  body  was,  it  enjoyed  al- 
most an  international  reputation,  and  every  stranger 
of  distinction  that  came  to  the  city  was  sure  to  be 
introduced  there  at  the  meetings  on  Saturday  night, 


[126] 

which  were  always  largely  frequented  by  the  mem- 
bers. Thackeray,  Tom  Hughes,  and  many  other 
famous  Englishmen  appeared  there,  and  on  my  first 
visit  to  London,  in  1879,  Tom  Hughes  was  good 
enough  to  take  me  to  a  meeting  of  a  club  that  he  had 
organized  in  the  same  name,  but  which,  I  believe, 
did  not  long  survive.  At  any  rate,  it  never  attained 
anything  like  the  distinction  of  its  namesake. 

I  ought  not  to  forget  one  other  and  very  different 
form  of  social  intercourse,  which  I  enjoyed  from  the 
very  day  of  my  landing  in  New  York,  and  that  was 
at  Doctor  Bellows's  church,  which  still  stands  on 
the  corner  of  Twentieth  Street  and  Fourth  Avenue, 
and  which  was  then  often  spoken  of  derisively  by 
our  orthodox  friends  as  the  "beefsteak"  or  "zebra" 
church,  from  its  peculiar  architecture.  It  was  fre- 
quented by  a  large  number  of  educated  and  highly 
intelligent  people,  largely  from  New  England,  and 
Doctor  Bellows  was  a  noble  element  in  the  life  of 
New  York,  and  a  very  eloquent  and  powerful 
preacher.  I  cherish  his  memory  most  devoutly  as 
my  first,  last,  and  only  pastor,  and  keep  his  portrait 
close  by  me  by  night  and  by  day  in  memory  of  the 
wonderfully  wholesome  influence  that  he  exercised 
upon  my  personal  life.  He  was  a  man  of  most  un- 
tiring energy,  not  only  in  his  profession,  but  in  all 
other  good  works,  and  his  wonderful  achievements 
a  few  years  afterwards  in  organizing  and  main- 
taining throughout  the  Civil  War  the  United 
States  Sanitary  Commission,  of  which  he  was  presi- 


[   I27  ] 

dent,  has  given  him,  I  believe,  a  lasting  place  in 
history. 

Thus  it  may  be  conceded  that  from  the  outset  I 
enjoyed  very  choice  and  unique  social  privileges, 
and  although  in  my  subsequent  busy  life  I  had  to 
curtail  indulgence  in  them  somewhat,  they  have  ever 
been  in  the  retrospect  a  most  satisfactory  pleasure. 


VIII 
AT  THE  NEW  YORK  BAR 

The  conduct  of  law  business  in  those  primitive 
days  was  very  different  in  every  particular  from  the 
strikingly  commercial  methods  into  which  the  pro- 
fession has  fallen,  or  risen,  in  recent  years.  For 
instance,  the  office  of  Butler,  Evarts  &  Southmayd 
consisted  of  four  very  moderate-sized  rooms  on  the 
second  floor  of  2  Hanover  Street,  a  little  building 
which  has  long  ago  been  demolished,  and  the  place  in- 
cluded in  the  great  banking-house  of  Brown  Brothers 
&  Company.  There  were  only  two  clerks  besides 
myself  in  the  office  and  one  scrivener.  There  was 
no  railing,  which  now  marks  every  office  that  I 
know  about  and  which  we  forebade  as  long  as  it 
was  possible,  and  there  were  no  retiring  rooms  for 
the  partners  and  leading  associates  in  the  office. 
Cashier's  and  accountant's  rooms  would  have  been 
thought  absolutely  unprofessional,  as  the  lawyers  of 
the  establishment  did  their  own  work. 

It  was  not  long  after  I  had  established  my  prowess 
as  a  scrivener,  as  I  have  already  described,  that  I 
gradually  began  to  come  into  the  kind  of  work  to 
which  I  had  looked  forward  when  I  chose  the  law  as 
my  profession,  and  I  had  the  singular  good  luck, 

[128] 


[  I29] 

quite  unprecedented,  I  think,  then  and  now,  to  serve 
for  some  ten  years  as  junior  to  Mr.  Evarts  in  the  con- 
duct of  the  litigation  which  then  constituted  a  very 
considerable  portion  of  the  business  of  the  office,  and 
occasionally  the  litigation  into  which  Mr.  Evarts  was 
called  as  counsel.  I  learned  to  prepare  the  cases  for 
trial  and  for  argument,  and  then  to  assist  in  prepar- 
ing my  senior  for  his  vastly  more  important  part  of 
the  work.  At  first  I  was  amazed  at  his  wonderful 
power  of  assimilating  everything  that  I  did,  and  the 
extraordinary  speed  with  which  he  would  make  him- 
self master  of  all  the  questions  involved  in  a  case  to 
be  tried.  For  he  would  come  into  court,  when  he 
found  that  he  could  rely  upon  my  preparation,  ab- 
solutely knowing  nothing  about  the  case,  and  would 
assume  the  conduct  of  it,  and  in  a  half-day  would 
appear  to  have  possessed  himself  of  every  question 
to  be  tried  in  it,  and  of  every  leading  bit  of  evidence 
to  be  presented,  so  that  from  that  time  on  to  the  end 
of  the  case,  he  was  fully  imbued  with  all  that  was 
necessary  for  its  proper  presentation.  I  had  never 
seen  anything  like  this  mental  action  before,  and 
never  realized,  until  I  came  to  stand  in  the  same  re- 
lation to  my  junior  in  long  subsequent  years,  that  it 
was  simply  an  acquired  faculty  to  which  a  man  of 
quick  brain  and  energetic  nervous  action  could  qualify 
himself. 

Mr.  Evarts,  although  then  only  thirty-eight  years 
old,  was  rapidly  rising  to  the  foremost  place  in  the 
profession,  and  here  I  think  I  ought  to  say  something 


a  little  more  at  large  about  his  wonderful  faculties 
and  his  extraordinary  career. 

He  was  already  only  a  few  steps  behind  the  very 
leaders  of  the  bar  at  that  time.  With  such  men  as 
Francis  B.  Cutting,  George  Wood,  Charles  O'Conor, 
James  T.  Brady,  Daniel  Lord,  William  Curtis  Noyes, 
and  Marshall  S.  Bidwell  he  was  found  to  be  in  daily 
conflict,  and  his  opinion  on  important  questions  was 
already  much  in  demand.  Of  these  men  it  is,  I  think, 
fair  to  say  that  their  superiors  have  never  been  pro- 
duced at  the  New  York  bar  from  that  day  to  this. 

Francis  B.  Cutting  was,  perhaps,  the  most  formida- 
ble advocate  in  court  that  ever  was  at  work  in  New 
York.  He  was  of  tremendous  physical  force,  and 
seemed  to  throw  all  his  energy  of  body  and  mind 
into  the  case  that  he  was  for  the  time  conducting. 
He  was  a  handsome  creature,  and  in  this  respect  I 
think  was  without  an  equal.  In  all  the  work  of  the 
courts,  in  the  examination  of  witnesses,  in  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  questions  of  evidence,  and  in  the  pres- 
entation of  the  case  to  the  court  or  the  jury,  as  might 
be,  he  had  no  superior,  and  to  be  brought  in  conflict 
with  him  led  to  a  rapid  education  of  his  juniors.  He 
was  in  all  the  leading  cases,  but  his  professional  career 
was  brought  to  a  sudden  end  in  the  trial  of  the  Par- 
rish  will  case  in  1858,  a  case  which  was  one  of  the 
very  leading  cases  up  to  that  time  in  the  history  of 
New  York  on  the  subject  of  testamentary  capacity. 
Right  in  the  midst  of  it  he  broke  down  suddenly  and 
finally,  so  that  I  think  he  never  appeared  in  court 


again.  And  it  shows  what  a  point  in  advancement 
Mr.  Evarts  had  already  reached  that  he  was  called 
into  the  case  as  Mr.  Cutting's  successor,  and  proved 
himself  fully  equal  to  the  conduct  of  it;  and  from 
that  time  I  think  he  ranked  as  one  of  the  foremost 
leaders  of  the  bar  in  New  York,  and,  of  course,  in 
the  country  at  large. 

Mr.  O'Conor  was  by  common  consent  the  fore- 
most of  the  great  lawyers  of  the  day.  In  power  of 
logic,  in  keen  and  incisive  criticism,  in  fierceness  of 
attack  and  defense,  and  in  the  complete  mastery  of 
the  law  he  was  certainly  without  a  superior. 

Mr.  Daniel  Lord  was  of  a  wholly  different  type,  but 
was  called  upon  every  day  to  cope  with  O'Conor. 
Immense  weight  of  character,  absolute  fidelity  to 
the  client  and  the  cause,  untiring  industry,  excellent 
manners,  and  never-failing  courtesy,  especially  to- 
wards his  juniors,  were  qualities  the  combination  of 
which  made  him  irresistible  whenever  he  had  a  fair 
case  to  present,  and  as  Mr.  Evarts  had  been  brought 
up  in  his  office  and  graduated  from  there  some  fifteen 
years  before,  we  looked  upon  him  naturally  with  the 
greatest  reverence,  to  which  he  was  fully  entitled. 

Mr.  William  Curtis  Noyes  was  another  model  of 
professional  excellence  and  success.  He  was  more 
like  the  commercial  lawyer  of  to-day  than  any  of  his 
compeers,  and  was,  I  believe,  perhaps  the  first  exam- 
ple that  we  had  of  a  counsellor  fully  qualified  to  ini- 
tiate and  carry  on  great  corporate  organizations, 
and  I  think  that,  up  to  the  time  that  death  struck 


[    '32] 

him  from  the  roll,  he  might  be  regarded  as  the  most 
successful  lawyer  of  his  time. 

James  T.  Brady  was  one  of  the  most  delightful 
men  I  have  ever  met.  He  was  a  real  orator  and  was 
largely  engaged  in  defense  of  criminal  cases,  although 
he  was  quite  equal  to  any  civil  procedure  that  might 
arise;  his  striking  personality  as  a  witty  and  jovial 
Irishman  fully  made  up  for  any  lack  of  legal  learning 
and  entitled  him  to  a  place  in  the  front  rank.  He 
was  one  of  the  dearest  and  most  fascinating  of  men; 
always  frank  and  open,  having,  so  far  as  I  could  see, 
nothing  to  conceal  and  no  desire  to  conceal  anything, 
and  he  commanded  a  popularity  far  exceeding  that 
which  at  that  time,  I  think,  any  of  his  associates  in 
the  profession  enjoyed.  He  was  always  in  demand 
for  great  public  meetings  and  never  failed  to  make 
a  first-rate  speech. 

Marshall  S.  Bidwell  was  a  lawyer  of  great  learning. 
Descended  from  a  famous  lawyer  of  the  same  name, 
he  had  practised  in  Canada  for  many  years,  and  had 
become  the  leader  of  the  Liberal  party  there  previous 
to  and  during  the  Rebellion  of  1837,  and  became  so 
formidable  to  the  government  that  he  was  ordered 
to  leave  the  country,  and  he  moved  to  New  York 
City  where  he  subsequently  practised  law  and  took 
a  prominent  position.  He  left  his  name  upon  the 
profession  by  establishing  the  office  which,  under  the 
name  of  Bidwell  &  Strong,  Strong  &  Cadwalader,  and 
now  Cadwalader,  Wickersham  &  Taft,  has  main- 
tained such  an  enviable  position  in  the  city. 


j 

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I  I 

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o 

"* 'f*J 
—  O' 

tr« 


nar 
now  C 

rained 


:  Of  C 


Iciightfu! 
MK!  was 
Although 
at  might 
-vial 


>  far  as  1  c 

ceding  that 


men; 
i  see, 


-arning. 
c  name, 

.nadrt  ,nd  had 

ions 

ie  so 

ered 

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:id  took 

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the 

trong  &  Ca.<h-  and 

ham  &  Tak,  has  main- 
>n  in  ti 


[  133] 

Among  this  group  my  senior  found  a  fitting  place 
in  the  legal  world  and  was  constantly  engaged  in  the 
most  vigorous  kind  of  work.  I  regret  very  much  that 
although  fifteen  years  have  passed  since  his  death  no 
adequate  memoir  of  Mr.  Evarts  has  as  yet  been  pro- 
duced, and  the  number  of  those  who  knew  him  well 
is  rapidly  diminishing.  Taking  him  for  all  in  all,  he 
was  the  quickest-witted  man  that  I  have  ever  known 
on  either  side  of  the  water,  and  in  the  course  of  a 
long  life  I  have  met  many  of  the  foremost  men  of 
intellect  and  action,  both  here  and  in  Great  Britain. 
Nothing  could  possibly  escape  him,  and  his  mind 
seemed  to  flash  instantaneously,  no  matter  what  was 
the  subject  that  engaged  his  attention.  He  was  ex- 
ceedingly fortunate,  too,  in  being  at  the  height  of 
his  powers  during  the  most  interesting  period  of  our 
history,  and  it  so  happened  that  four  or  five  of  the 
greatest  and  most  interesting  causes  that  have  ever 
engaged  the  attention  of  our  courts  came  when  he 
was  at  the  head  of  the  profession,  and  as  such 
was  naturally  called  upon  to  take  a  leading  part  in 
them. 

The  Lemmon  slave  case,  in  the  court  of  appeals 
at  Albany,  involved  most  interesting  questions  in 
regard  to  the  application  of  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law, 
and  he  was  retained  by  the  State  of  New  York  as 
counsel  to  maintain  the  right  of  the  alleged  slave  to 
his  liberty.  It  happens  to  few  lawyers  in  a  single 
life  to  be  called  on  to  lead  in  four  such  cases  as  the 
Geneva  Arbitration,  the  Electoral  Commission,  the 


impeachment  of  President  Johnson,  and  the  trial  of 
the  case  of  Tilton  against  Beecher. 

The  Geneva  Arbitration  was  the  one  great  histori- 
cal case  which  would  form  a  fitting  ornament  and 
achievement  of  any  great  professional  career.  He 
had  very  powerful  associates  in  Caleb  Gushing,  of 
Massachusetts,  and  Morrison  R.  Waite,  of  Ohio, 
who  afterwards  became  chief  justice  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  and  was  opposed  by  Sir  Roundell  Palmer,  who 
for  his  great  services  in  the  case  was  afterwards  raised 
to  the  peerage  and  became  Lord  Chancellor  of  Eng- 
land, as  Lord  Selborne.  It  was  a  case  of  truly  in- 
ternational importance,  and  may  safely  be  said  to 
have  attracted  the  attention  of  the  whole  world.  It 
was  a  natural  sequel  to  those  alarming  differences 
which  had  arisen  between  the  two  countries  out  of 
the  conduct  of  Great  Britain  in  letting  out  the 
Alabama  and  the  other  sea  raiders  to  prey  upon  the 
commerce  of  America  during  our  Civil  War,  and 
which,  in  effect,  did  really  destroy  it  for  the  time 
being.  I  do  not  suppose  that  any  legal  controversy 
ever  enlisted  and  excited  the  feelings  of  the  people 
of  two  great  nations  so  much.  He  led  with  great 
distinction  and  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  the  winner 
of  the  case,  which  resulted  in  what  I  believe  to  have 
been  the  largest  pecuniary  award  ever  recovered  in 
such  an  arbitration,  and  when  he  returned  to  America, 
bringing  his  sheaves  with  him  in  the  shape  of  fifteen 
millions  of  dollars  as  the  result  of  his  efforts,  the  en- 
thusiasm with  which  he  was  met  knew  no  bounds. 


[135] 

This  was  the  finest  laurel  Mr.  Evarts  ever  won, 
and  from  the  novelty  and  world-wide  interest  in 
the  case,  it  is,  perhaps,  the  most  notable  professional 
achievement  that  ever  fell  to  the  lot  of  any  Ameri- 
can advocate.  Making  full  allowance  for  all  the 
aid  rendered  by  his  distinguished  associates,  there 
is  no  doubt  that  he  is  entitled  to  the  chief  credit 
for  the  grand  result,  and  the  pecuniary  success  of 
it  was  nothing  compared  to  its  immense  value  as 
establishing  the  supremacy  of  arbitration  as  the 
only  sure  means  of  settling  international  quarrels 
between  great  nations,  for  this  question  had  been 
threatening  war  from  the  time  of  the  escape  of  the 
Alabama. 

The  trial  of  the  impeachment  of  President  John- 
son was  one  of  the  grandest  and  most  thrilling  legal 
conflicts  that  has  ever  taken  place  anywhere.  The 
President  had  undoubtedly  been  guilty  of  very  im- 
prudent conduct,  but  the  narrow  technical  issue  on 
which  the  case  chiefly  turned,  his  alleged  violation  of 
the  Tenure  of  Office  Act,  raised  a  constitutional  ques- 
tion which  should  easily  have  protected  him  before 
any  tribunal.  It  seemed  to  me  at  the  time  that  the 
impeachment  of  the  President  was  one  of  those  high- 
handed and  desperate  attempts  which  are  sometimes 
made  in  seasons  of  great  party  excitement,  not  only 
to  oust  the  President  from  office,  but  for  the  time 
being  to  paralyze  the  executive  office  itself,  and  to 
usurp  on  the  part  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
the  whole  executive  power  of  the  government.  The 


[136] 

purpose  of  the  impeachment,  if  they  could  succeed 
in  removing  the  President,  to  put  the  office  in  the 
hands  of  an  extremely  zealous  leader  of  the  party, 
was  never  disavowed,  and  so  it  required,  as  it  seemed 
to  me,  great  courage  on  the  part  of  Mr.  Evarts,  who 
had  been  a  lifelong  Republican,  to  accept  a  retainer 
from  the  President,  and  to  maintain  his  cause  and 
the  integrity  of  his  great  office  to  the  best  of  his  abil- 
ity. His  conduct  of  the  case  as  a  forensic  perform- 
ance will  never,  I  think,  be  forgotten.  He  was  asso- 
ciated with  two  great  lawyers,  both  of  whom  were 
considerably  older  than  himself,  William  S.  Gros- 
beck,  of  Cincinnati,  and  Judge  Benjamin  R.  Curtis, 
of  Boston,  but  Mr.  Evarts  had  to  bear  the  brunt  of 
the  case  and  was  found  to  be  not  only  physically  but 
mentally  fully  adequate  to  the  occasion.  His  ex- 
treme readiness  on  the  floor,  his  startling  wit,  his 
broad  ability  to  grapple  with  all  the  legal  and  con- 
stitutional questions  that  arose,  made  him  a  very 
conspicuous  figure  in  the  case.  It  may  be,  and  I 
think  it  is  the  case,  that  as  the  Senate,  which  formed 
with  the  Supreme  Court  the  tribunal  to  hear  and 
determine  the  case,  was  then  constituted,  it  would 
have  been  impossible  to  obtain  the  two-thirds  vote 
necessary  for  a  verdict  of  removal,  for  there  were  a 
number  of  senators  in  whose  minds  patriotism  was 
before  party,  and  I  have  always  regarded  it  as  one 
of  the  most  brave  and  public-spirited  triumphs  of 
good  conscience  that  seven  senators  were  found  un- 
der the  lead  of  Mr.  Fessenden  and  Mr.  Trumbull,  to 


defy  the  imperious  dictates  of  their  party  and  vote 
for  acquittal  of  the  President. 

The  Electoral  Commission  was  a  very  rare  and  an 
absolutely  unique  form  of  litigation  as  a  means  of 
settling  a  contested  election  for  the  presidency,  and 
although  it  had  no  international  bearings,  it  put  to 
a  severe  test  the  possibility  of  adjusting  such  a  con- 
test without  resort  to  force.  If  Mr.  Tilden  had  been 
more  pugnacious  and  had  really  claimed  what  his 
followers  all  believed — that  he  was  entitled  to  a 
plurality  of  votes  of  some  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand — a  contest  of  force  for  the  position  might 
well  have  taken  place,  as  General  Grant,  then  Presi- 
dent and  commander-in-chief  of  the  army  and  navy 
of  the  United  States,  would  certainly  have  resisted 
the  claim.  It  was  a  very  happy  outcome  from  a 
most  dangerous  issue,  and  the  counsel  who  conducted 
the  controversy  before  the  commission,  of  whom  Mr. 
Evarts  was  the  chief  on  the  Republican  side,  are  en- 
titled to  the  very  greatest  credit  for  their  devotion 
to  the  case. 

By  virtue  of  the  extreme  prominence  of  the  part 
taken  by  Mr.  Evarts  in  the  Geneva  Award  and  in  the 
Electoral  Commission,  he  was  practically  compelled 
to  devote  the  rest  of  his  life  to  the  public  service,  and 
in  the  great  offices  of  attorney-general  of  the  United 
States,  secretary  of  state,  and  senator  from  New 
York  he  certainly  rendered  admirable  service  to  the 
whole  nation.  There  is  no  doubt  that  notwithstand- 
ing the  result  of  the  Electoral  Commission  a  cloud 


[138] 

of  doubt  and  suspicion  rested  upon  the  title  of  Presi- 
dent Hayes,  and  it  was  by  the  happy  selection  of  a 
very  powerful  and  public-spirited  cabinet,  of  which 
Mr.  Evarts  was,  as  secretary  of  state,  at  the  head, 
that  this  embarrassment  was  completely  overcome, 
so  that  the  administration  of  Mr.  Hayes  will  be  found 
to  rank  very  high  in  the  history  of  good  government 
with  any  that  preceded  or  followed  it. 

The  case  of  Tilton  against  Beecher  was  not  only 
infinitely  curious  and  interesting,  but  its  conduct  on 
the  part  of  the  defense,  in  which  Mr.  Evarts  led,  was 
one  that  called  forth  the  highest  powers  of  advocacy. 
The  most  distinguished  clergyman  in  the  United 
States  was  put  on  trial  for  alleged  acts  of  gross  im- 
morality, of  which  he  doubtless  was  entirely  innocent. 
The  trial  occupied  many  weeks,  and  of  course  every 
word  that  was  uttered  in  the  court-room  was  bruited 
abroad  throughout  the  country  as  far  as  the  press 
could  carry  it.  The  arguments  in  summing  up  were 
of  inordinate  length,  Mr.  Evarts's,  I  think,  occupying 
nine  days,  or  seven  days,  and  Mr.  Beech's  for  the 
plaintiff  nearly  as  long;  but  the  whole  history  of  the 
case,  every  consideration  and  circumstance  that  could 
possibly  have  any  material  bearing  upon  the  issue, 
were  all  contained  in  the  first  day  of  his  seven  days' 
argument.  Mr.  Evarts  must  have  been  in  complete 
sympathy  from  the  start  with  his  distinguished  client; 
they  were  both  of  that  stern  old  Puritan  descent, 
origin,  and  discipline  which  had  continued  in  Massa- 
chusetts and  Connecticut  undiluted  down  to  their 


[  J39] 

time,  and  I  have  often  said  to  Mr.  Evarts  that  I 
thought  his  own  mental  and  moral  qualities  were  as 
fully  displayed  in  his  first  day's  argument  as  those  of 
his  great  client. 

Thus  it  appears  that  Mr.  Evarts  easily  held  to  the 
end  of  his  days  the  well-earned  post  of  the  greatest 
and  most  famous  advocate  at  the  American  bar. 

Such  was  the  man  with  whom,  from  a  point  mid- 
way in  his  great  professional  career,  I  was  closely  as- 
sociated until  his  death  forty  years  afterwards,  and 
the  digression  which  I  have  made  to  sketch  his  char- 
acter was  necessary  to  show  the  very  unusual  and, 
indeed,  unique  advantage  that  I  enjoyed  from  the 
very  outset  of  my  young  professional  life.  I  cannot 
recall  any  other  instance  of  a  lawyer  in  America  hav- 
ing such  an  advantage  at  the  start.  In  England, 
where  the  distinction  of  the  profession  between  bar- 
risters and  attorneys  is  strictly  maintained,  there  is 
a  somewhat  similar  relation  at  times  established  be- 
tween the  leaders  of  the  bar  and  their  juniors.  For 
instance,  I  have  heard  that  Lord  Haldane,  who  came 
afterwards  to  be  Lord  Chancellor,  after  a  most  dis- 
tinguished professional  career  at  the  bar,  especially 
in  the  chancery  side  of  the  practice,  "  devilled  "  as 
they  call  it,  for  twelve  years  at  the  beginning  with 
Lord  Davey. 

Lord  Davey,  himself,  had  been  very  eminent  at 
the  chancery  bar,  and  is  believed  to  have  had  the 
largest  professional  income  of  any  lawyer  there  from 
private  practice,  not  including  those  who  had  held 


[ 

the  office  of  attorney-general,  or  solicitor-general,  and 
had  in  those  days  been  permitted  to  continue  their 
private  practice  at  the  same  time,  and  who,  of  course, 
enjoyed  in  the  matter  of  fees  a  very  great  advantage. 
For  instance,  it  was  the  common  talk  of  the  profes- 
sion, when  I  was  in  England,  that  Sir  Roundell 
Palmer,  already  referred  to  as  the  leading  counsel  for 
Great  Britain  in  the  Geneva  Arbitration,  had  in  one 
year,  while  attorney-general,  realized  the  net  sum  of 
fifty  thousand  pounds,  but  it  was  also  said  that  he 
worked  for  it  day  and  night  the  year  round,  from 
Monday  morning  until  Saturday  night,  and  that  one 
day,  when  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith  needed  very  much  to 
see  him  and  called  at  his  chambers  for  the  purpose, 
his  clerk  said:  "Is  it  absolutely  necessary  for  you  to 
see  him?"  To  which  Mr.  Smith  replied  that  he 
thought  that  it  was.  "Well,"  said  the  clerk,  "if  you 
say  it  is  necessary,  you  can  see  him,  but  I  would 
advise  you  not  to,  for  he  hasn't  been  in  bed  since 
Sunday  night,"  and  this  was  Thursday. 

The  devilling  process  consisted  very  much  in  what 
I  did  so  long  for  Mr.  Evarts,  working  up  the  cases, 
studying  the  questions,  preparing  a  brief  or  memo- 
randum for  the  senior,  and  being  kept  for  the  time 
somewhat  in  the  shade,  but  when  Lord  Davey  was 
raised  to  the  bench,  Lord  Haldane,  then,  of  course, 
Mr.  Haldane,  came  into  full  possession  of  his  re- 
ward, for  he  immediately  succeeded  to  about  half  of 
the  business  that  Lord  Davey  had  enjoyed;  and, 
throwing  off  the  devil's  mask  at  once,  came  into  a 


[HI] 

place  of  great  prominence  in  the  profession.  So  I 
enjoyed  during  my  term  of  ten  or  twelve  years  of 
subordinate  service  all  the  advantages  which  are 
open  to  the  young  English  barrister  and  which  are 
almost  wholly  unknown  here,  and  I  never  can  suffi- 
ciently express  my  obligations  and  gratitude  to  Mr. 
Evarts  for  giving  me  this  great  opportunity. 

But  I  am  getting  a  little  ahead  of  my  story  and 
must  go  back  to  the  beginning,  when  I  entered  the 
law  office  in  Hanover  Street  as  a  student  in  January, 

1856.  After  I  had  been  there  about  six  months  the 
firm  proposed  that  I  should  remain  with  them  for  a 
year  as  a  clerk,  there  being  only  two  others  occupying 
that  relation.     I  was  to  receive  five  hundred  dollars. 
I  gladly  accepted  the  offer  and  thought  myself  very 
rich,  and  I  think  that  I  enjoyed  that  five  hundred 
dollars  more  than  I  ever  enjoyed  the  greater  indi- 
vidual fees  which  came  to  me  in  after  years,  for  I 
was  immediately  able  to  write  to  my  father  that 
he  would  not  have  to  send  me  any  more  money, 
as  I  could  take  care  of  myself,  and  so  relieve  the 
poorly  furnished  family  purse  of  that  much  of  the 
drain  upon  it.    After  a  year,  at  the  beginning  of 

1857,  the  firm  proposed  that  I  should  continue  for 
another  year,  and  as  an  inducement  offered  me  a 
salary  of  eight  hundred  dollars,  and  that  I  might 
do  any  business  of  my  own  that  should  happen  to 
come  to  me,  and  in  that  year  I  received,  besides 
my  salary,   about  five  hundred  dollars  in  fees,  so 
that  at  the  beginning  of  1857  I  really  thought  my- 


[   142] 

self  a  Croesus.  My  financial  ambition  was  not  very 
lofty,  for  I  remember  very  well  feeling  and  saying 
at  that  time  that,  if  I  could  ever  find  myself  the 
owner  of  accumulations  to  the  amount  of  ten  thou- 
sand dollars,  I  should  be  perfectly  satisfied  and 
never  want  more. 

At  this  time,  too,  my  large  earnings  of  one  thou- 
sand three  hundred  dollars  a  year  enabled  me  to  begin 
to  accumulate,  for  I  have  always  thought  that  it 
was  the  duty  of  every  lawyer  to  begin  to  provide  for 
his  future  in  that  way  as  soon  as  possible.  I  never 
went  quite  to  the  extreme  of  Mr.  Southmayd,  who 
used  to  preach  the  doctrine  of  self-denial  very  ur- 
gently, and  declare  it  to  be  the  duty  of  every  lawyer 
to  accumulate  his  entire  professional  income  from 
the  start.  "But,"  said  I,  "it  isn't  everybody  that 
can  do  that,  for  we  must  live."  "No,"  said  he, 
"that  doesn't  follow;  that  is  not  at  all  necessary." 
It  had  not  been  necessary  in  his  case,  because  he, 
fortunately,  lived  at  home  and  had  no  expenses  ex- 
cept for  his  clothes,  and  those  were  simple  and  mod- 
est, for  he  always  patronized  the  same  tailor,  and 
hating  to  go  to  be  measured  or  to  try  on,  he  fell  into 
the  habit  of  sending  a  semiannual  message  to  his 
tailor:  "Two  suits  like  the  last."  So,  for  his  sixty 
years,  there  was  never  any  change  in  the  fashion  of 
his  garments.  But  there  is  no  such  wonderful  rule 
for  a  young  lawyer,  no  such  aid  in  his  personal  ad- 
vancement, as  to  begin  to  accumulate  as  early  as 
possible,  no  matter  how  little,  for  he  begins  in  that 


[H3] 

way  to  have  income  that  earns  itself,  wholly  inde- 
pendent of  his  own  exertions. 

Thus  I  continued  in  the  office  of  my  superiors  for 
about  three  years,  until  in  1858,  seeing  no  prospect 
of  any  further  advance  in  that  office  and  feeling  my- 
self already  fledged,  I  struck  out  for  myself  and 
opened  a  law  office  in  Wall  Street  in  partnership  with 
William  Henry  Leon  Barnes,  a  year  or  two  my  junior. 
Both  of  us  were  in  the  same  line,  ambitious  to  become 
court  lawyers,  he  having  been  for  a  year  or  two  with 
Mr.  Charles  O'Conor,  as  I  had  been  with  Mr. 
Evarts.  Possibly  we  might  have  done  very  well  in 
long-continued  partnership,  although  I  have  my 
doubts  about  that,  because  we  were  too  much  in 
the  same  line;  but  he  got  married  and  went  off  for  a 
very  long  wedding-tour,  which  took  him  to  Europe 
for  several  months. 

In  the  meantime,  Mr.  Evarts  began  to  approach 
me  with  new  overtures,  asking  at  first  if  I  did  not 
know  of  any  young  man  whom  they  could  get  to 
come  in  with  them  to  help  in  the  business  of  the  firm. 
Of  course  I  said  I  did  not.  But  he  from  time  to 
time  continued  his  approaches,  and  finally  said: 
"You  don't  seem  to  understand  what  I  am  after. 
We  want  you  back  in  the  office,  and  to  come  in  as 
a  member  of  the  firm."  Of  course  I  could  not  re- 
sist this  splendid  opportunity,  because  the  firm  was 
certainly  at  that  time  the  leading  firm  in  the  city. 
So  the  firm  Choate  &  Barnes  was  dissolved,  and 
Barnes,  who  was  certainly  one  of  the  most  brilliant 


[  144] 

young  men  of  his  time,  went  to  try  his  fortunes  in 
California,  where  he  became  connected  with  one  of 
the  foremost  lawyers  there,  and  had  a  very  successful 
career. 

I  wish  that  I  could  find  the  letter  that  Mr.  Evarts 
wrote  to  me  stating  the  terms  on  which  I  could  come 
in  with  them,  for  in  a  few  words  it  furnished  a  very 
good  illustration  of  the  situation  of  the  bar  at  that 
time,  so  far  as  money  was  concerned.  The  idea  of 
lawyers  making  great  fortunes  appears  never  to  have 
occurred  to  anybody.  The  law  was  a  strict  profes- 
sion, and  was  satisfied  with  ordinary  and  reasonable 
rewards.  He  wrote  that  they  would  like  to  have  me 
join  the  firm  as  a  partner,  and  that  I  should  receive 
fifteen  per  cent  of  the  income,  not  including,  however, 
his  own  counsel  cases,  those  in  which  he  was  employed 
by  other  lawyers  and  with  which  his  firm  had  noth- 
ing to  do.  He  added  that  while  he  could  not  state 
exactly  what  this  would  amount  to,  he  thought  that 
I  might  safely  count  upon  at  least  three  thousand  a 
year.  This  would  make  the  entire  office  income 
twenty  thousand  dollars,  instead  of  the  half  million 
which  I  understand  in  these  later  days  some  law 
offices  enjoy.  Well,  I  thought  that  my  fortune  was 
certainly  made,  for  it  had  never  occurred  to  me  that 
in  five  years  after  leaving  the  law  school  I  could 
come  into  such  an  income  as  it  would  give  me,  and 
which,  I  suppose,  measured  by  modern  standards,  was 
equal  to  four  or  five  times  the  amount  to-day.  From 
this  time  forward  I  not  only  had  the  great  privilege 


••.  fie  v. 


ANNOUNCEMENT  OF  THE  FORMATION  OF  THE  FIRM  OF  CHOATE 
AND  BARNES,   IN   1858. 

This  notice  was  found  among  Mr.  Choate's  papers,  and  must  have  been  issued  just 
a  few  months  before  he  joined  the  firm  of  Evarts  and  Southmayd. 


young  me  ft«?s  in 

'  of 

rh  ere,  and  1.  •  cessful 

;d  the  l>. 

wro                  itmg  the  terms  or  .d  come 

in  w                        .a  a  few  wor^  *ed  a  very 
got-                  >n  of  the  situ 

r  as  money  was  idea  of 
making  rj 


added  th& 

exactly  whar  this  would  aur 
I  might  safely  count  upor? 
year.    This  would  make 

•usand  doliur?, 

ii 

•••<  .;\,  I  AMI 


3TAOHD  TO 


3HT 


tate 

^ght  that 
r^usarid  a 

ome 


-?ne  law 

sine  was 

ic  that 

.ould 

•  e.  and 

3HT  10  TM3M30XUQMXA 

.\'as 


.  , 

C<|\MHft$P(Jn'  ""^  9V*1^  Jeurn  ^aa  .•1:j'?£(!  c'?tsoiiO  .iM  gaome  bnuol 

.bY>mi(tiK>2  LITE  sJifiv.l  In  (lift    ::  lofed  zrfjnorn  w)1 

thb  ilege 


m  at 

Ho.  62  WALL  STREET 


//'f     Wfn<r 


fi/fi    f<>i 
'      ' 

ni/cz 


/  1/     m>f/  ttf/e?    GytAteftfei   /•//, 


r-i    I  /    S/"  ft'ti'/(l-tf''?'  '    H'/HC/t    -yt'tt    J»nt/    /'    /•//' 


Jl. 
•William   II.    I.     H 


[145] 

of  working  with  Mr.  Evarts,  to  which  I  have  already 
referred,  but  gradually  began  to  be  employed  inde- 
pendently of  that.  The  mere  fact  of  my  having  been 
taken  into  so  distinguished  a  firm  gave  me  a  sort  of 
personal  standing  of  my  own,  and  clients  began  to 
come  to  me,  and  sometimes  in  Mr.  Evarts's  absence, 
and  especially  in  the  absence  of  the  other  members 
of  the  firm,  I  was  called  upon  in  emergencies  to  act 
for  myself.  By  dint  of  untiring  industry  and  reason- 
able ingenuity  and,  I  must  admit,  some  audacity,  I 
began  to  make  headway  quite  rapidly. 

I  remember  very  well  my  first  great  constitutional 
case,  which  was  as  amusing  as  it  was  audacious. 
General  James  Watson  Webb,  who  had  been  an  in- 
timate friend  of  Mr.  Evarts  and  Mr.  Prescott  Hall, 
and  a  lot  of  other  prominent  men  and  good  livers  in 
New  York,  and  who  had  been  editor  of  The  Courier 
and  The  Enquirer,  and  a  loyal  supporter  of  William 
H.  Seward,  came  into  the  office  one  Saturday  after- 
noon and  inquired  for  Mr.  Evarts.  Of  course  Mr. 
Evarts  was  never  there  on  Saturday  afternoon,  and 
he  said,  "Well,  then,  you  must  help  me,"  and  he 
stated  his  case.  He  had  just  been  appointed  minis- 
ter to  Brazil  by  President  Lincoln,  and  had  made  all 
his  arrangements  to  sail  on  the  following  Wednesday, 
when,  to  his  infinite  surprise,  he  had  been  served  with 
short  summonses,  as  they  were  called,  in  the  Marine 
Court,  which  were  returnable  on  the  following  Tues- 
day, one  day  before  he  was  to  sail.  As  several  parties 
to  whom  he  was  indebted  for  these  small  sums  were 


[H6] 

acting  together,  he  had  found  out  that  there  was  a 
conspiracy  among  them  to  get  judgment  on  Tuesday 
and  to  seize  his  trunks  as  he  was  going  on  board  the 
steamer,  and  so  prevent  his  sailing  altogether. 
They  were  probably  the  parties  from  whom  he  had 
got  more  or  less  of  his  outfit. 

"Well,"  said  I,  "General  Webb,  what  is  your  de- 
fense ?"  "I  am  sure  I  don't  know,"  said  he.  "Have 
you  had  these  goods?"  "Yes."  "Have  you  paid 
for  them?"  "No,  I  had  no  money."  "Well,  how 
came  they  to  sue  you  in  the  Marine  Court,  of  all 
places  in  the  world?"  "Well,"  said  he,  "it  is  just 
as  I  say,  a  conspiracy  to  prevent  my  sailing.  You 
must  put  in  a  defense."  I  reflected  and  said:  "Well, 
I  will  try,  but  I  am  not  at  all  sure  that  it  will  succeed." 
"  Do  the  best  you  can,"  said  he.  "  Have  you  got  your 
commission  ?"  I  asked.  He  took  it  out  of  his  pocket, 
signed  Abraham  Lincoln,  President;  William  H. 
Seward,  Secretary  of  State,  and  with  a  big  seal  of  the 
United  States  upon  it  which  looked  as  big  as  a  large 
platter,  and  which  I  thought  would  make  a  great 
impression  in  court,  especially  in  the  Marine  Court, 
which  was  a  small  municipal  tribunal  of  very  limited 
jurisdiction.  So  I  interposed  the  plea  that  by  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  the  Federal  Courts 
had  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  all  suits  affecting  am- 
bassadors, public  ministers,  and  consuls,  and  on 
Tuesday,  the  return  day,  I  appeared  in  court  and 
interposed  that  plea.  A  very  eminent  lawyer  of  that 
day,  many  years  my  senior,  appeared  on  the  other 


side,  and  proposed  to  pooh  !  pooh !  me  out  of  court. 
"Why,"  said  he,  "your  Honor,  Mr.  Choate  is  en- 
deavoring to  impose  upon  you.  The  clause  in  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States,  to  which  he  refers, 
giving  the  Federal  Courts  exclusive  jurisdiction  of  all 
suits  affecting  ambassadors,  public  ministers,  and 
consuls,  refers  only  to  foreign  ambassadors,  public 
ministers,  and  consuls."  I  insisted,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  there  was  no  such  word  as  "foreign"  in 
the  Constitution,  and  that  the  clause  in  question 
included  all  ambassadors,  public  ministers,  and  con- 
suls. "Will  your  Honor  please  send  for  the  Consti- 
tution, and  then,  perhaps,  we  shall  see  who  is  trying 
to  impose  upon  the  court."  So  the  Constitution  was 
brought  and  read,  and  it  turned  out  that  I  was  right. 
The  word  "foreign"  was  not  in  it,  and  we  argued  it 
to  and  fro  on  the  reason  of  the  thing,  and  Judge 
Henry  Alker,  who  held  the  court  and  was  half  Irish- 
man and  half  Frenchman,  and  a  brother-in-law  of 
James  T.  Brady,  to  whom  I  have  already  referred, 
took  the  papers  for  consideration,  and  in  the  after- 
noon he  rendered  a  decision  in  my  favor,  dismissing 
all  the  cases,  and  the  general  went  on  his  watery  way 
to  Brazil  unimpeded  by  judgments  or  executions. 
It  was  quite  a  professional  triumph,  and  the  best  of 
it  was  that  in  due  time  I  sent  to  the  general  a  bill 
for  my  services,  of  which  he  never  took  any  notice. 
But  I  have  heard  cases  argued  in  the  Supreme  Court 
at  Washington,  constitutional  cases,  too,  which  had 
very  much  less  merit  in  them  than  the  one  which  I 


then  presented  to  the  Marine  Court  with  so  much 
success.  The  Supreme  Court  of  the  State,  however, 
to  whom  one  of  the  creditors  had  resorted  when  the 
case  came  on  there  in  the  fall,  laughed  the  defense 
out  of  court,  and  the  creditors  found  ample  means 
to  recover  judgments,  which,  probably,  were  not 
worth  much  more  than  the  paper  on  which  they 
were  written. 

I  worked  like  a  Trojan  at  the  law.  For  nearly 
forty  years  (to  be  exact,  for  thirty-seven  years),  until 
I  had  the  honor  to  be  appointed  ambassador  to  Eng- 
land in  1899,  I  labored  steadily  at  the  preparation, 
trial,  and  arguments  of  cases  in  the  courts,  with 
hardly  a  break  from  the  first  Monday  of  October 
round  to  the  last  Friday  of  June.  In  the  course  of 
that  time  I  disposed  of  an  enormous  number  of 
cases,  steadily  growing  in  importance  and  difficulty, 
and  without  any  failure  of  health.  This  was  a  rare 
blessing,  for  almost  every  lawyer  that  I  have  known 
who  has  worked  under  the  same  pressure,  and  there 
were  very  few  of  them,  suffered  at  least  one  break- 
down, which  disabled  him  for  a  time. 

When  I  came  to  see  how  the  English  lawyers  work 
and  how  they  are  relieved  by  frequent  holidays,  I 
wondered  that  we  had  ever  maintained  our  arduous 
struggle  through  the  year  without  breakdowns. 
There  the  courts  come  in  in  October  and  continue 
their  sessions  for  eight  or  nine  weeks  until  Christmas, 
when  they  have  a  two  weeks'  holiday,  and  every  busy 
barrister  drops  his  briefs  and  makes  for  the  Conti- 


nent  or  for  the  mountains,  and  has  a  real  period  for 
rest  and  recruiting;  then  they  come  in  again  and 
work  for  eight  or  nine  weeks  more,  which  brings  them 
to  the  Easter  recess,  another  real  holiday  of  ten  or 
twelve  days  with  the  same  advantage;  another  eight 
or  ten  weeks  of  work  and  Whitsuntide  arrives  (a 
third  intermediate  holiday  of  which  we  know  nothing 
and  which  we  ought  to  borrow  at  once);  and  then 
a  fourth  term  of  eight  or  ten  weeks  of  work,  which 
brings  them  up  to  the  I2th  of  August,  when  the  law  is 
off  on  grouse,  and  courts  and  barristers,  kings,  lords, 
and  commons  disappear  for  the  long  vacation  of 
twelve  weeks.  No  wonder  that  they  hold  out  better 
than  ourselves,  and  that  nervous  breakdowns  are 
rarely  heard  of  over  there  !  But  with  us  it  is,  in  the 
case  of  busy  barristers,  a  continuous  and  almost  un- 
interrupted nervous  strain  for  nine  months  of  the 
year. 

It  would  be  hardly  worth  while  to  recall  even  the 
names  of  the  cases  in  which  I  was  constantly  engaged 
in  the  earlier  half  of  my  professional  life.  The 
foundations  were  being  laid  for  the  subsequent  super- 
structure of  professional  success.  I  had  a  great  liking 
for  jury  trials,  and  it  always  seemed  to  me  that  the 
lawyer  who  is  constantly  engaged  in  that  branch  of 
legal  practice  leads  a  more  intensely  intellectual  life 
than  almost  any  other  professional  man. 


IX 
MARRIAGE 

Having  reached  the  point  where  I  could  not  only 
support  myself,  but  a  family,  I  naturally  thought  of 
getting  married,  but  had  never  met  my  fate  in  this 
respect,  or  encountered  a  woman  who  answered  all 
my  ideas.  But  one  day  my  friend  John  H.  Sher- 
wood said  to  me:  "I  want  to  introduce  you  to  a 
young  lady  who  I  am  sure  will  exactly  suit  you, 
and,  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  you  will  suit  her  equally 
well/'  He  must  have  been  a  wonderful  judge  of 
character  to  make  so  bold  a  prophecy,  but  he  proved 
to  be  a  real  prophet.  Not  long  afterwards,  I  think 
by  his  arrangement,  I  was  invited  to  dine  at  the 
house  of  Mr.  Thomas  P.  Rossiter,  then  a  noted  artist 
and  very  prominent  in  a  social  way  among  the  artists 
of  New  York  at  that  day,  and  there  I  met  Miss  Caro- 
line Dutcher  Sterling,  the  daughter  of  Frederick  A. 
Sterling,  of  Cleveland,  Ohio,  and  I  very  soon  found 
that  it  was  as  Mr.  Sherwood  had  said.  But  there 
was  a  serious  difficulty  in  the  way.  She  was  living 
at  the  house  of  her  cousin,  Mrs.  Rossiter,  and  had 
come  to  New  York  for  the  purpose  of  studying  art, 
intending  to  devote  herself  to  it  as  a  profession  for 
life,  with  great  prospect  of  success.  She  was  some 
five  years  my  junior,  and  was  as  earnestly  devoted 

[150] 


['Si] 

to  art  as  I  was  to  the  law,  so  that  we  were  both  most 
unfortunately  busy,  and  the  worst  of  it  was  that  she 
had  made  a  vow  of  some  sort  never  to  think  of  any- 
thing but  art.  In  fact,  she  wore  a  wedding-ring  on 
which  was  inscribed  the  words  "Wedded  to  art," 
and  the  date,  some  time  before  I  knew  her.  How- 
ever, I  followed  up  our  first  acquaintance  with  great 
persistence,  and  found  that  the  more  I  saw  of  her  the 
better  I  liked  her,  and  came  to  know  that  she  had  all 
the  traits  that  I  wanted,  and  that  I  must  stake  all 
my  fortunes  on  that  die.  Still  that  plaguey  wedding- 
ring  stood  in  my  way,  but  there  is  no  rock  so  hard 
but  that  a  little  wave  will  beat  admission  in  a  thou- 
sand years,  and  after  a  while  I  found  that  she  began 
to  relent,  and  that  my  prospects  were  brightening 
every  day,  so  I  pressed  on,  and  on  the  Fourth  of 
July,  1 86 1,  the  beleaguered  fortress  yielded,*  and  I 

*  The  following  self-explanatory  verses,  which  were  found  among  Mr. 
Choate's  papers,  are  interesting,  as  they  were  written  on  the  Fourth  of  July, 
1861,  to  Mrs.  John  Jay,  at  Katonah,  in  Westchester  County.  The  manuscript 
of  the  verses  (a  portion  of  which  is  reproduced  in  facsimile  on  a  neighboring 
page)  was  discovered  by  Mrs.  Jay  among  her  papers  and  returned  to  the 
writer. 

"Mr  DEAR  MRS.  JAY — 

Words  are  weak  to  convey 
The  chagrin  and  dismay 
Which  it  costs  me  to  say, 
I  must  still  disobey 
You:  nor  come,  on  the  Fourth,  to  Katonah. 

But  that  day  of  parade 
I  have  vowed  to  a  maid 
Of  whose  wrath  I'm  afraid 
Lest  my  word,  once  betrayed, 
She  may  leave  me  for  life  to  bemoan  her. 

She  is  youthful  and  fair, 
With  the  saintliest  air, 


['52] 

celebrated  that  anniversary  of  our  national  inde- 
pendence by  sacrificing  my  own  independence  for 
life.  The  old  wedding-ring  was  put  aside,  and  on 
the  1 6th  of  October,  in  that  year,  I  put  another  ring 
upon  her  finger,  which  continues  there  to  this  day. 

Upon  the  whole,  it  was  the  most  fortunate  day  of 
my  life,  for  although  fifty-five  years  and  more  have 
fled,  I  think  that  neither  of  us  have  ever  had  occasion 
to  regret  it.  In  all  that  time  we  have  had  some  very 

And  her  sunny  brown  hair 
Decked  with  lilies  so  rare 
Descends  on  the  rarest  of  shoulders. 

And  hard  were  the  case, 
But  the  wonderful  grace 
That's  enthroned  in  her  face 
Would  win  her  a  place 
In  the  hearts  of  the  coldest  beholders. 

And  then,  such  a  mind ! 
Why,  I  may  be  stone  blind 
But  if  you  can  find 
One  as  pure  and  refined 
And  as  rightly  inclined 
You  must  let  it  appear  in  the  sequel. 

And  then,  as  for  her  soul, 
While  our  planet  shall  roll 
You  may  ransack  the  whole, 
From  Equator  to  Pole 
But  will  never  discover  her  equal. 

She's  so  free  from  all  taint 
That  men  call  her  a  saint, 
And  she  may  or  she  mayn't 
Lend  an  ear  to  my  plaint, 
But  my  heart  is  not  faint 
And  my  lips  with  all  praises  have  blest  her. 

Now  I  trust  you'll  excuse 
This  poor  plea  of  my  muse, 
Since  I  cannot  but  choose 
For  this  cause,  to  refuse 
What  it  grieves  me  to  lose — 
A  kind  welcome  once  more  to  Westchester." 


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FACSIMILE  OF  MANUSCRIPT  OF  VERSES. 

Written  to  Mrs.  John  Jay  by  Mr.  Choate  on  the  day  of  his  engagement — July  4, 
1861.  The  verses — printed,  in  toto,  on  pages  151  and  152 — are  interesting  as 
showing  his  characteristic  handwriting,  which  never  faltered  until  the  day  of 
his  death. 


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[153] 

severe  trials  and  afflictions,  but  for  all  that  have  had 
abundant  and  ever-increasing  cause  to  be  thankful. 
She  is  fully  entitled  to  the  better  half  of  all  our  pros- 
perity and  success,  and  now,  as  the  end  of  life  ap- 
proaches, we  do,  indeed,  find  ourselves  blessed  with 
all  that  should  accompany  old  age,  as  honor,  love, 
obedience,  troops  of  friends. 

For  the  first  year  of  our  married  life  we  went  to 
board  with  her  aunt,  Mrs.  Carr,  in  a  pleasant  little 
house  on  Twenty-third  Street,  just  east  of  Fourth 
Avenue.  It  was  destroyed  a  few  years  ago,  but  the 
marks  of  it  still  remain  on  the  side  of  the  adjoining 
mansion  of  much  greater  pretensions  against  which 
it  rested.  In  the  spring  of  1863  we  ventured  to  go  to 
housekeeping,  and  hired  for  six  hundred  dollars  a 
year  a  modest  house  in  West  Twenty-first  Street,  No. 
93,  afterwards  changed  to  No.  137,  which  we  occu- 
pied for  six  or  seven  years  until  it  would  hold  no 
more  children  than  four,  with  whom  we  had  already 
been  blessed. 

When  we  look  around  us  in  these  days  and  see  how 
children  of  our  acquaintance  are  in  the  habit  of  com- 
mencing married  life  on  the  scale  which  their  parents 
have  already  attained,  we  sometimes  wonder  how 
we  ever  had  the  courage  to  embark  in  it,  but  those 
were  very  simple  days,  and  we  were  able  by  dint  of 
a  reasonable  frugality  to  lay  aside  from  year  to  year 
about  half  our  income,  which,  being  steadily  contin- 
ued, soon  removed  all  danger  of  the  wolf  coming  to 
our  door. 


£ 


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